


Buried Deep

by not_here_leave_a_message



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Established Raylla, Established Relationship, F/F, I mean it's a serial killer AU so that's par for the course I suppose..., I'm not kidding it's angst start to finish., Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, It's the Scylla/Porter one that is getting all the heavy tags., Just to be clear the Raylla relationship is as healthy as can be expected given the circumstances, Mentions of Scylla/Porter so just be aware of that., Murder, Paramedic!Raelle, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), SerialKiller!Scylla, it's also pretty dark, serial killer au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28431759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_here_leave_a_message/pseuds/not_here_leave_a_message
Summary: Raelle had always known that Scylla hid parts of herself: her past especially.  She accepted it because she loved Scylla, but she'd be lying if she said it didn't bother her.So when Scylla's past comes knocking on their door in the form of her ex, Porter Tippit...Raelle can't help but start to ask questions, and she finds herself digging into a past that has been purposefully buried....with good reason.A Raylla serial killer AU.
Relationships: Raelle Collar & Scylla Ramshorn, Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn
Comments: 86
Kudos: 165





	1. A Guest

**Author's Note:**

> Well hello again! I'm back! The muse decided to accompany me for a while longer, and so we've got another journey to go on together!
> 
> Now, I know if you've clicked on this fic then you've probably read the title, the description, and the tags and so are aware that it's about Scylla being a serial killer, but I do feel the need to just put more thorough warnings before you start to read, so the following are major warnings for this fic:
> 
> -Violence/murder. Scylla's a serial killer, roughly half this fic is her POV, she discusses her kills, and some of them she discusses in semi-graphic-to-graphic detail, depending on your tolerance for violence. I am a firm believer in less-is-more when it comes to gore, but ya know. There's still some mentions in here.
> 
> -Torture/abuse/Darker Scylla in general. My versions of Scylla always turn out darker than canon but I went all-in here. She's very much a bad person willing to do good things. She's not killing for a cause, she's not Dexter, she very much is a monster who is trying to be better because of her love for Raelle, but who is still guilty of things like torturing/abusing her ex, which is discussed, though not at length. (I do find it pertinent to mention though, that the Raylla relationship is a healthy one, excepting the lies Scylla has to tell Raelle.) I did my best to balance the toxic elements of the Porter/Scylla relationship, but it was still, ya know, a toxic-to-the-point-of-abuse relationship, so that's something to be aware of.
> 
> -Mentions of abuse of minors. I don't go into any detail but it is implied that both Scylla and Porter did not have a good time in the foster care system. I am aware this is a stereotype used often in serial killer stories: unfortunately, it is what it is, in this case.
> 
> -Trauma. It's a story about murder, and something had to start Scylla on that path. While I know that irl childhood trauma does not a serial killer make, in this fic...well, in keeping with her character (her parents' murder in particular), it does make an appearance. Plus, you know. Killing people is pretty traumatizing...
> 
> -There is a brief mention of attempted suicide on Porter's part later on. There are no details, it's just mentioned.
> 
> -Mentions of alcoholism/drug use. 
> 
> I think that's it as far as warnings! Figure I don't need to warn about sex as it's heavily implied by the "established relationship", but besides the gore, the fic is rated M for a reason (I mean that reason is mostly the violence, but there's also sexy times). Having said all that, if you stumble across anything else you feel warrants a warning, do get in touch and I'll be sure to update this list! 
> 
> I do hope to have you enjoying the story with me, but your mental well-being comes first, so please take care of yourselves. And if this fic just is not your cup of tea, that's fine too! 
> 
> As with basically everything I publish, this fic is complete: the whole thing is written and more or less ready to go, excepting another phase of editing. Speaking of which, special thanks to Holeybubushka for being a test audience when I wasn't sure if I pushed the limits a little too far on just how dark I went with Scylla...
> 
> Anywho, apologies for the long note: now that you've made it through that wall of text, I hope you enjoy the first chapter!

It started with that damn ringing of their apartment buzzer. 

Raelle looked up from her phone, surprised.

The thing was rarely ever used. Sometimes, their mailman would use it so that they knew they’d received a package, but that was always just a quick, short ring, not the extended one that sounded in their otherwise peaceful living room. 

Raelle looked over at Scylla, who looked up from her book, confused, raising an eyebrow at Raelle as though Raelle knew who would be ringing their apartment buzzer. 

She had no idea. Though of the two of them, it would most likely be someone Raelle knew. Her unit, or maybe her pa, or on very rare occasions, maybe even Anacostia, though Raelle didn’t consider them that close…

In fact, of everyone, Anacostia would be the one to ring the buzzer. Raelle’s pa usually just called, and they weren’t expecting him anyway. Considering how far away he lived…he wouldn’t be just paying them a random, drop-by visit. Abigail and Tally just texted when they were there, if they didn’t use their spare keys that Raelle had given them when she’d first moved in. Raelle wouldn’t put it past them to drop by for a surprise visit, but they certainly wouldn’t bother with ringing the bell…

It sounded again, and Raelle shrugged in answer to Scylla’s silent question, just as confused as her girlfriend. They’d been living in that apartment together for near a year and a half – a cozy little one-bedroom with enough natural light to satisfy Scylla’s small collection of plants (that really, Raelle kept alive) – and no one had ever rung the buzzer twice. 

Ever.

Really, that should have been the first tip-off. Raelle should have known that something wasn’t right from that alone, but she’d been enjoying a peaceful afternoon with her girlfriend, so she’d shrugged it off. They ignored it, and after a few minutes, it didn’t ring again, so Raelle chocked it up to a fluke, turning her attention back to her phone.

The knock had both of them looking up from where they sat, Scylla with her knees folded, curled up on the couch, Raelle slouched on the other side, head resting on the armrest, legs crossed. It was her turn to raise her eyebrow at Scylla. 

“We expecting anything?” Scylla asked, furrowing her brow, and Raelle shook her head. 

“No,”

“Any _one_?” she tried as another knock rang out. 

“Nope,” Raelle said, and Scylla marked her spot in her book, standing and heading out of the living room in which they’d been enjoying a quiet afternoon. 

It wasn’t often they got to do it: between Raelle’s sometimes demanding schedule and Scylla’s semi-unpredictable one, entire afternoons off where both of them were available were few and far between. Late afternoons or evenings, sure, but the whole afternoon…it was cause for celebration. Those few extra hours truly made all the difference, so much so that the night was going to include a full-course dinner for a date night, which would be followed, Raelle had no doubt, by at least two hours of having Scylla and her gorgeous body all to herself. Which Raelle was very much looking forward to.

Not that their sex life was lacking: quite the opposite. But it was going to be so nice to just be able to take their time. For Raelle to work Scylla into a rare type of frenzy that turned Raelle on beyond belief and left them both aching for more.

Raelle shuddered at the thought, pocketing her phone and standing up, following Scylla out to the hall and to the door. The knocking persisted.

“Chill out, dude,” Raelle muttered to herself, coming up to Scylla’s side, and Scylla turned to her and smiled.

“I know, right? Where’s the-” she opened the door, her smile dropping as she turned to see who was on the other side, “-fire…”

Raelle furrowed her brow, taking in Scylla’s features: frozen, her entire posture stiffening, her lip just shy of curling into a sneer. Raelle saw the corner of her mouth tic, and she cautiously stepped behind Scylla, curiously looking out the door to see-

“Porter,” his name fell from Scylla’s lips in a whisper of disbelief.

Raelle quirked an eyebrow at Scylla, who hadn’t torn her gaze from their unexpected guest, stood in the hall, fist still poised to keep knocking, eyes wide with shock that the door had actually opened. 

Porter?

Raelle glanced at him, looking like a deer in headlights, surprised despite himself, apparently, to be looking at Scylla.

Porter, as in…

Raelle looked to Scylla, incredulous, but Scylla’s jaw was locked and her gaze was forward. From her stiff posture alone, Raelle already knew the answer to her question.

Porter. As in. Scylla’s ex. 

Oh…

Oh. 

Raelle turned once again to Porter, furrowing her brow. 

She’d heard of Porter, but truly, didn’t know a lot about him. She honestly mostly forgot that he was a person that had existed in Scylla’s life, because Scylla didn’t really talk about him. He had, after all, been her boyfriend from more than a decade before, so it wasn’t like there was much to discuss: he was clearly ancient history, to Scylla. And, truly…Scylla was pretty mum about her life before she’d met Raelle.

Raelle knew the pertinent facts about her: deceased parents, foster system, university programs. 

Exes. 

And, really, of the exes…Porter was the one who had lasted the longest, but about whom, Raelle knew the least.

And that fact already had her on edge, but also…a bit intrigued despite herself. She stood there, observing them, Scylla’s expression that of stone, shocked to the point that she was internalizing all of her emotions: all of her thoughts and feelings. Processing.

And leaving Raelle alone to look between them.

\---

Raelle ended up being the one to invite him in, because she was a Southern gentlewoman before anything. Because it was awkward, to just stand there, while Scylla and Porter had some kind of staring contest that started to ooze with tension the longer they stood, eyes fixed, mutual expressions of confusion on their faces. 

Raelle invited him in to just…get him out of their doorway. Out of their hallway. To make things, with any luck, less awkward. And, if not less awkward…at least, awkward in the privacy of their flat, rather than out in the open for their neighbors to potentially witness. And she did it because…well, her mama, before she’d died, had made sure to drill manners into her head, and she well and truly didn’t know what else to do. Company was on their doorstep, so she had stepped aside and invited him in and he’d stared at Raelle as though he had entirely forgotten that she was there, before accepting the invitation and walking into their apartment. 

Raelle pointed him in the direction of the kitchen, and, looking dazed, he’d headed there, Raelle following him, grabbing Scylla by the arm.

“Should I call the cops?” Raelle had asked, hushed, and Scylla shook her head, as though ridding it of her own haze. 

“No,” was all she said, her gaze trained down the hall, eyes squinting, if only just, and just the slightest hint of a scowl starting to form: brow furrowed, lips turned down in a frown and just barely starting to curl. 

She looked like she was going to say more, but she didn’t, walking down the hall with purpose, and Raelle followed helplessly behind. 

“Can I get you anything to drink, Porter?” Raelle asked as she entered the kitchen, Porter sat awkwardly at their table, his jacket folded in his arms, back straight, folio briefcase that he’d had in his hand placed on the floor at his feet. 

He was stiff as a board. Scylla was sat opposite him, the “hint” now just short of an actual scowl, Scylla looking like she was using every ounce of her strength to not do just that.

Porter blinked at Raelle, clearly surprised by the question. He looked at Raelle as though he was dazed, as though he’d entirely forgotten that she was actually even there again, despite having looked directly at her when he’d entered _her_ apartment. 

It took quite a bit of Raelle’s own strength and manners to not scowl as well. She knew Scylla was…well. Alluring. Gorgeous. Beautiful. A siren in human skin. But he didn’t have to make it so obvious he was still attracted to her. Still very much mesmerized by her. 

And, if the mounting tension was anything to go by…perhaps there was a bit more there. 

It put Raelle on edge, and suddenly, she very much needed a drink. 

She waded through the tension, thicker by the second as the silence stretched between the exes, reaching the fridge and pulling it open. 

She turned and raised an eyebrow at their guest, and her words must have finally registered, then, because Porter spoke up, “Um. If it’s not too much trouble-” he said, casting a nervous glance to Scylla, who’s expression hardened. 

Raelle tried to ignore it. She’d…she’d honestly never seen the look that Scylla had on her face before. Contempt burned in her eyes, every muscle taut, her jaw clenched. She looked…like she very much did not want him there. 

Really, Raelle should have called the police, no matter what Scylla said. But of the two, in that moment…Scylla looked like the bigger threat. Porter just looked…like he was already regretting his decision to show up, his nervous glance at Scylla looking very much like he was preparing to be reprimanded by a strict parent.

Raelle sighed to herself.

“Beer?” she asked. He seemed like the type, and she wasn’t wrong. 

He nodded, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he turned to properly face Raelle, a small, grateful smile appearing on his features. 

“That’d actually be great, thank you,” he said.

Raelle pulled two beers from the fridge. She would have gone for a third, but Scylla didn’t drink beer, and even if she did…she didn’t look like she would be moving much, her stony, stormy gaze still very much trained on Porter, her arms folded tight.

Really, Raelle realized, she should have shut the door in his face. Or asked why he was there without inviting him in, but…well. He had to be there for a reason, right? She tried to reason with herself: exes didn’t just show up at doorsteps unless something dire had happened. Though Raelle couldn’t help but feel that a phone call would have been much easier…

She took the few steps forward to hand Porter his beer, trying to ignore the even thicker tension. It hung like humidity in the air, complete with pinpricks of sweat forming on her skin as she leaned against their counter and took in Scylla and their unwelcome guest. 

Raelle took a long swig from her beer, miffed despite herself at all that was crackling in the air between them. 

Raelle knew the basics about Porter and Scylla. He was Scylla’s ex. They’d met in foster care and had been together, on and off, from when they were sixteen until Scylla got into college, at twenty. 

According to Scylla, she hadn’t loved him. They bonded over shared traumas and injustices, and that was it. The way Scylla had talked about him, it seemed pretty clear to Raelle that he was a piece of her past that she was very keen to leave there: buried as much of her past was. Despite three years together, Raelle knew very little about who Scylla had been before they met, let alone how she had been nearly ten years prior to their meeting.

She knew some things; like that Scylla really hadn’t dated in college, choosing to throw herself into her studies, though she’d had a few one-night stands here and there. As far as Raelle could tell…Porter was the only other relationship of Scylla’s that had lasted any amount of time. That had lasted longer than a few nights to keep her bed warm. 

Part of Raelle couldn’t really blame Scylla for that. She knew why Scylla had been put into the foster care system, and the shit she knew that Scylla had seen…she didn’t doubt that none of it helped her to create lasting or healthy relationships. Not without putting some distance between herself and her past. Which explained…some, of her caginess about it.

Clearly, though…there was more there than Raelle had thought. Or had been led to believe…

She wasn’t sure if she should be jealous or not. Technically, Porter hadn’t done anything – yet – to warrant jealousy, besides looking longingly at her girlfriend. Which…okay, that was a good enough reason, actually. She could feel the jealousy, coursing in her veins, and the silence that stretched between them did nothing to help that in the slightest. The tension was impossible to ignore…

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t necessarily a good tension: it was still charged. Heated. Dangerous, and heady in its own way, and she hated the creeping feeling that she was interrupting something by being there. 

It was absurd. Scylla had barely spoken about Porter because, in her own words, he “didn’t really matter”. But clearly, he did. In some way, in some shape or form…in some capacity, there was something between them, and Raelle couldn’t help but feel like the odd man out. 

“I’m um…I’m sorry to just show up like this,” Porter finally broke the silence, “I realize it’s really weird to just um…show up. I just…I was in the area. Someone downstairs let me in, and I just… Um. I know it’s unconventional, it’s just…last I’d heard of Scylla, she was here,”

Last he’d heard of her? 

Raelle raised an eyebrow, directed at Scylla, who had yet to tear her gaze from Porter: observing him. Assessing him. Raelle couldn’t get a good read on her, nor what, exactly, she was thinking or feeling, and that did nothing to help with Raelle’s unease. 

“So you thought you’d just show up?” Scylla asked, “Like some sort of fucking stalker?” 

The tone and the strong words, while not entirely out of place on Scylla, did have Raelle raising her other eyebrow nonetheless. 

Oh, Scylla was angry. Her voice was low: dangerous. There was a threat in her words, veiled. Frosty and scathing, and she narrowed her eyes into a glare that matched. 

Porter had the decency to flinch at Scylla’s tone. 

“I…I’m sorry,” he said that directly to Raelle. “I didn’t realize…I didn’t know she had a girlfriend. Not that that’s a bad thing!” he added hastily, running a hand through his hair. “I think it’s great! I just…probably would have not just showed up at the door…”

Raelle pursed her lips. Social decorum dictated she shrug it off, but she didn’t want to. Because, honestly: yeah, it was wrong that he had just decided to show up at his ex’s doorstep, single or not. It was creepy, and it was weird, and she didn’t like the implications. 

He sighed, “I don’t know, I’m sorry, this was a stupid idea. I was just in town, and feeling nostalgic. I um…I’m here for a buddy’s funeral,” he nodded to Raelle, “Good friend from the Air Force.”

Raelle nodded once, curtly, in acknowledgement and understanding. “Oh,” she sighed. Yeah, she got that. She thankfully hadn’t lost anyone she was close with during her time in. “I was Army,” she muttered. 

He sent her a brief smile. “Figured you may have been. You have the look,” he said, almost…appraisingly. “Anyway, I just…he’s from around here and I remembered she’d taken off here, last I heard of her. And I don’t know, just…nostalgia, I guess. I was just at his wake and…um. Got the copies of his will and such,” he glanced down at the folio. “And…I don’t know. You know how sometimes death just kind of…gets to you?”

Yes. Yes she really did, actually. She’d seen it a few times during her stint as an Army medic. She’d seen it plenty of times on the job: being a paramedic sometimes entailed people dying on her watch on the way to the hospital. Dying in her ambulance, dying while she tried everything she could to hold death off for just one second more. She knew how much death could get to someone. 

She also knew what happened when someone saw too much of it. When someone was fascinated by it, even drawn to it. Those people became medical examiners, and Raelle knew that because Scylla was a medical examiner. And despite looking rather normal, Scylla had an odd fascination with death that sometimes could creep Raelle right the hell out. 

Scylla’d actually recently finished her final year as a pathology resident and had started up a fellowship immediately after, with the same medical examiner with whom she’d done her residency: keeping herself local at the closest hospital to their apartment. Scylla worked with the dead on the daily, pulling bodies open and poking around in them, examining death up close and personal. 

She sometimes smelled of the morgue, and Raelle hated it. Nothing quite as un-sexy as the smell of corpse chemicals on her girlfriend. 

But, yes, Raelle knew how sometimes death could just “get to” someone. She found herself nodding. Death, of someone like a close friend…family, really, always felt different, always left a different impression than the death of strangers. And the death of a military buddy: a friend in arms, a family member not in blood but in trauma, in experience, in camaraderie. It hit home.

God knew how it would affect her to learn of the passing of Abigail or Tally, her two closest friends from her unit during her own stint in the military. They’d been together for every deployment. She’d lived with and bonded with them for the better part of their time in the military. Losing one of them would feel like losing a part of herself, and she knew how that feeling could really fuck with someone’s…everything.

She’d felt that kind of grief when her mother had died. Wild and stubborn, grotesque and insufferable. An ache that opened a deep pit of despair, and the only thing that kept it at bay was other people. Familiarity. 

Scylla was that, for Porter, and the realization made Raelle’s stomach churn, both for recognizing Porter’s pain and for realizing that even if Scylla didn’t feel anything for him…he clearly still felt something for her. Something deep, that he would reach out to her after so many years, when he was in so much pain. 

Unless he had no one else, and Raelle couldn’t help but tilt her head, taking him in. Scylla had said they were both foster kids, but she had never specified what had happened to Porter’s parents or family. She had never detailed any of her time with foster families, nor Porter’s. Raelle didn’t know if Porter was close with anyone from that time, besides Scylla, but, well…if him showing up at their doorstep was anything to go by, the answer was no.

The thought struck Raelle as incredibly sad. 

Raelle suddenly felt uncomfortable, and she shifted, straightening. “Um. I’m sorry about your buddy. That’s rough,”

He nodded. “Thanks. It’s um…it’s a lot, honestly. We were pretty close. Definitely the only family I ever really had,”

Well. That answered Raelle’s unspoken question, then. 

He turned to look at Scylla with a sort of…guarded nostalgia. Lamenting what could have been, perhaps, and Raelle fought down a scowl of jealousy, suddenly not as sympathetic for his predicament. She tried, but not very hard, to push down the reaction: the man had just lost a good, or best, friend. A brother. It wasn’t the time for Raelle to get jealous, but he clearly was still nursing a bleeding heart for Scylla.

Not that Raelle could necessarily blame him. Scylla was…Scylla was a force. Her presence was as commanding as it was mystifying. She reminded Raelle of the moon: beautiful and bright, magnetic, capable of creating monsters of men and inspiring stories for millennia. Not without her dark side: mysterious, secretive, unattainable but always there, steady as the moon cycles themselves. Scylla was terrifying: a celestial body with a seductive smile, and she knew it, too. She knew her power and she wielded it, and it had never escaped Raelle just how many envious looks she would get, whenever she was out with Scylla and her unit at a bar, when potential suitors realized that Scylla was with Raelle. It stoked her ego just so, and honestly, it was nice. 

But more than that…it was easy to love Scylla. That air of mystery made her positively addictive: even after three years together, there were certain things about Scylla that Raelle didn’t know. It was like Scylla could put her under a spell and made her forget all of her doubts or random bouts of curiosity. 

Like now. Raelle couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach. 

Porter was…Porter was a reminder. Porter was a reminder of a past that Scylla was very tight-lipped about. Cagey about. 

And it wasn’t like Raelle wanted to pry. Scylla was vague about her past because it was a painful one. She’d seen her parents as they were murdered before her very eyes, and that…well. That was more than enough of a reason for Scylla to bury her past, and Raelle always tried to remember that, if she ever felt annoyed at being shut out from a part of Scylla’s self. And when she did remember, Raelle always felt a bit uneasy trying to dig: like plunging a shovel into earth at a graveyard. It just didn’t seem appropriate, and Scylla was good at evading her if she ever tried. 

It was…frustrating, but Raelle had accepted it as something that was just…none of her business. Scylla’s past was just one big question mark that Raelle had learned to accept, but…

Well, she couldn’t help it. A piece of Scylla’s past had just conveniently walked right into their lives, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious to know. 

In fact…she would consider their relationship nearly perfect, except for that one little detail. It was just frustrating sometimes, knowing she was giving Scylla everything, and in return Scylla only gave a part of herself. She wanted to know all of Scylla, and at three years…sometimes, she couldn’t help but wonder if she ever would.

The doubts ate at her, in her sour moods, but she tried to ignore them, mostly.

But with Scylla’s past sat before her, contemplating his beer, the dynamic between them so…charged…Raelle didn’t think she could be blamed for being a bit upset, and more than a little curious. 

\---

Scylla didn’t talk for damn near the rest of the time Porter was there. Conversation was stilted at best, Raelle asking questions just out of sheer desperation to fill the silence. To keep from suffocating in the tension. 

Porter answered her questions, though he only looked at her half the time. 

How long had he been in the Air Force? 

Eyes on Scylla, he’d said ten years. 

Was he gonna be a lifer?

No. In fact, he’d just gotten out about a year ago. He was inactive reserves, now.

What did he do for work, then?

Worked odd jobs, here and there.

And so it went, Scylla’s gaze on Porter and Porter’s gaze mostly on Scylla, and Raelle third-wheeling in her own home with her own girlfriend and glowering into her beer as she neared the end of it. 

Thankfully, Porter didn’t stay long. He sheepishly stood about half-way through his own drink, slipping on his jacket and picking up his tan leather folio. Again, out of courtesy, Raelle accompanied him to the door, Scylla behind her with her arms folded.

“Sorry if I, um…ruined your night,” he said, this time actually looking at Raelle, and indeed looking apologetic. A bit like a kicked puppy. “I just…well, I know it was a fucked up thing to do, but I missed her, you know? But I know it’s weird and creepy and it’s not my place. I’m um,” he swallowed. “I’m in town for the next few days. Got some time off, so just stopping here on my way north to see a few other buddies.” He stopped talking but kept standing in their open doorway as though he had more to say. He looked sheepishly at Raelle. “Um, I promise I’ll stay out of you guys’ hair, genuinely. I don’t want to stir up any shit-” _Too late_ , Raelle thought. “-and, Raelle, if you want me to get you back for that beer, I’m staying at The Lodge in downtown. Room 206. Just have them call up for me. Happy to pay you back.”

Raelle raised an eyebrow despite herself. “Don’t worry about it, Porter,” she said flatly, and he sent her a half-smile. 

“I mean it, you’ve been more hospitable than I would have been. I owe you, so if you decide you want it, just swing by,” 

Raelle refrained from telling him she absolutely wouldn’t, thanks. What a weird thing to offer to his ex’s current girlfriend, and Raelle didn’t like that he seemed to want to insist on it. It was just a beer, after all. 

Porter smiled appreciatively then, giving a small, weird, and awkward wave, before stepping out of their apartment and closing the door behind him.

\---

“Well…” Raelle said, staring at their closed door. “That was…weird.”

She looked over at Scylla, whose expression had only altered in the sense that now, she looked contemplative, as well as just short of scowling. She was glaring at the door as though it had personally offended her, which, well…Raelle couldn’t blame her for that. Raelle would probably feel the same if one of her exes had just showed up at their door, unannounced.

Although, to be fair…Raelle actually got along with her exes. She didn’t have many and she didn’t see them or anything, but the break ups had been amicable, so any ex randomly showing up would be met with confusion, but not…downright hostility.

At least, not on Raelle’s part. Not like the vibes Scylla was giving off in that moment. It did nothing to take Raelle off of that edge she’d been on since Porter arrived, and she didn’t like it, because she wasn’t sure what she could do to make it better. There was…danger, in Scylla’s eyes. Like Porter posed a threat to her, but not…not a physical threat. 

Raelle didn’t like the feeling.

“Scyl?” she prompted, raising her eyebrow. 

Scylla’s jaw worked, but slowly, the tension left her. As more and more time passed, second by second, Raelle watched her relax, bit by bit. 

Finally, she exhaled loudly. “Very weird,” she said. Her eyes were still hard, and Raelle knew that look: her brain was kicking into overdrive. 

Probably asking the same questions that Raelle’s was asking. Why was he bothering to stay? Would he actually leave them alone? How had he found their apartment? Was he a threat? 

A thought occurred to her, and Raelle pulled out her phone, shooting off a quick text. She felt her phone vibrate as she pocketed it, and even just knowing who was texting her back made her feel a little better about the whole thing: Anacostia. A detective with the local police force who Raelle had worked closely with on more than one occasion on various house calls for drug overdoses. They’d bonded over the fact that they’d both been in the Army, and really…Anacostia was pretty cool. Raelle considered them friends, though not nearly as close as Tally and Abigail. 

Still. Anacostia would want Raelle to be careful, and safe, so Raelle knew she’d want the information.

She caught the movement of Scylla’s slumping shoulders out of the corner of her eye and looked up. The coldness had seeped away to leave…contemplation. 

At the very least, that look, she knew, and she knew well. Processing. Scylla, in her moodier moments, sometimes needed time to stew. To figure out her next words, her next actions. To even figure out what she was feeling, and Raelle knew that about her. Raelle knew she would need that space, so she smiled reassuringly.

“We can talk about it tomorrow, Scyl,” she said gently, with understanding, and Scylla raised an eyebrow at her, nodding mutely. 

“Thanks,” she said, her voice oddly neutral, though leaden with exhaustion. “Sorry, I know I just kind of…abandoned you, there,”

“It’s okay. You were shocked, that’s all,” Raelle said, though she very much suspected that that was not, in fact, all. But that was a matter for a different time, when Scylla was less in her own head. “We can talk about it later. How about I draw us up a bath for now, and we can head to bed after?”

Scylla let out a shaky breath, a small smile breaking through her stormy expression. “Goddess, I would love that so much,” she practically whined. 

Raelle smiled softly at her. 

“One bath, coming up,” and she leaned in, stealing a quick kiss. She turned, walking down the hallway and leaving Scylla to her thoughts. 

She would just come and get her, naked, when the bath was ready. 

Until then, it was just best to let Scylla stew. Indeed, Raelle had some stewing of her own to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that was Chapter 1! A guest indeed, neither Scylla nor Raelle were expecting that...
> 
> You guys will notice that this chapter is pretty long: in all actuality this fic is a hair longer than The Weight of Truths, but you'll notice that the amount of chapters is shorter. I decided to give y'all longer chapters. While they still might change in length as I go about editing them (so the number of chapters may change), at the moment, all of them are between 4000-8000 words. I know people like long chapters so I don't foresee this being an issue, but if it becomes one feel free to let me know!
> 
> That said, because of the sheer length of these chapters, I won't be updating as frequently: to give you guys more time to savor them, and to give me more time to edit them, the tentative schedule will be once a week but may be longer, if life necessitates. If you find you have trouble waiting a week, you can always come babble at me on tumblr, same name just with dashes instead of underscores. 
> 
> So! That means I'll see you all next week for Chapter 2! Please drop a kudos or comment if you can't wait to delve in this darkness with me, it honestly means the world. And if you're here and ready to go, buckle up because we're going swimming in some angst.


	2. A Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! I'm glad to see that despite the heavy and dark material (or perhaps even because of it), I've got some of you along for the ride, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it! 
> 
> A new chapter for you all, Raelle's got some doubts and Scylla's not very happy about the sudden reappearance her ex...
> 
> Enjoy!

“He just…showed up?” Abigail asked, indignant. 

Raelle shifted, holding her phone flush against her ear with her shoulder as she walked to work from where the bus had left her. 

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I mean, like…I know he probably had no way to get our phone numbers, but like…damn man, a warning would be nice,”

“I don’t know how getting your phone numbers somehow seems harder to you than him managing to get your address. That’s creepy, Rae, did you tell Anacostia?” Tally piped up.

“Of course I told Anacostia, Tal. I texted her as soon as he left. She said she’d keep an eye out for him. Said she’d run a quick check on him too, but that hasn’t come back yet,”

“That’s so creepy! What if he’s lying, Raelle? He could have absolutely just murdered you and neither of us would be any the wiser! Remind me next time that I see you to punch you, that’s quite possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. And you’ve done a lot of stupid shit,” Abigail added. 

Raelle rolled her eyes, “Guys, you don’t understand,” Raelle paused in her walking for just a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Honestly, she adored her unit. She hadn’t gotten along with them at first, but well…the trauma-bonding was strong, in the military. They’d been through shit, and they’d done it together, and even though Abigail could act high and mighty sometimes…her unit were good people. They were the best people. They had literally been through hell with her, and she loved them dearly for everything they had done for her. Through thick and thin. And even once they’d left the army, they still stuck together. 

They hadn’t intentionally ended up in Pennsylvania together. Originally, Abigail was supposed to move out to Los Angeles to become some big hot-shot lawyer, riding the coattails of her family name. Tally herself had elected to go with Raelle to Pennsylvania, and Raelle was heading there because she’d found a job there that offered excellent benefits to vets. Sure, it was basically just a pipeline: Army medic to paramedic, but Raelle wasn’t going to complain. The company was going to pay for all of her training and credentials. Other programs or opportunities may have been better, but Raelle didn’t need better. She just needed a break. To take it as easy as possible in that field of work. The lack of needing to do anything on her end had been appealing, so she’d taken it.

Tally, unattached, had decided to join her, just to see what there was. “If I don’t like it, I’ll just leave. You know I love you, Raelle, but a girl needs to like where she lives,” which had made Raelle chuckle. 

Abigail ended up getting offered a scholarship at a university in Philadelphia that, even with her parents’ money, she’d decided she couldn’t pass up. So for several years, she’d been a bit further away, but not too far. 

And it all had just fallen into place from there: Abigail found a job, a good one, locally, working with some kind of well-known firm as a fellow or a deputy or maybe even an intern…whatever the term was, Raelle could never remember it, despite Abigail repeatedly telling her the title. 

Tally, for her part, had ended up working for a local foodbank. She had climbed the ranks and was helping run it, which she really seemed to enjoy, though Raelle could see a budding politician in her as she started advocating for more funding and trying to involve the community more. 

“I don’t think Porter’s any danger-” Raelle started, but Abigail interrupted.

“You don’t even know him, Raelle!”

“No, I don’t!” Raelle huffed, “But Scylla does. I asked her if I should call the cops, and she said no. I think if she thought I was inviting someone dangerous into our home, she would have said something, don’t you?”

“Didn’t you say that she just froze up, though?” Tally inquired, tone serious, “Isn’t that like…a bad reaction to have? How can you be sure that he wasn’t abusive towards her? And maybe she didn’t want to involve cops since they usually side with abusers, anyway?”

Raelle paused in her walk, realizing that was…true enough. It would…it would explain Scylla’s cold demeanor, certainly. It would explain why she shut up and refused to speak to Porter, and for a moment, Raelle felt her stomach drop. 

But…no. That wasn’t it. Porter had looked, nearly the entire time, like he had almost been expecting Scylla to go off on him. To get angry and kick him out, or perhaps worse…

Raelle shook her head. 

“No, Scylla definitely wasn’t afraid of him. I think, if anyone had been abusive in that relationship, it would have been Scylla,” she tried to joke, but neither of her unit laughed.

“Be careful, Raelle. Men like that, they know what they’re doing,” Tally said gravely.

Raelle let out a frustrated sigh, “I know that, Tal. I’m the one who has the most reason to distrust men here, guys. Lesbian?” she reminded them. “You both know I only barely tolerate the men in my life. But Scylla would have told me, even if she waited for him to leave-”

“Still, Raelle-”

Raelle huffed, “Guys! It’s over now! Drop it! It happened and it was stupid, Anacostia knows now, you all know now, I promise I won’t let any more people into my apartment, Jesus,” she pinched the bridge of her nose and took a calming breath, “Sorry,” she grumbled. She took in another breath before continuing, “Scylla looked like she was going to blow a gasket, so honestly, I don’t think he’s a threat. That’s all beside the point, though.”

“So what’s the point then?” Abigail asked tersely, not a big fan of being snapped at. 

“The point…” Raelle sighed to herself, “The point is that…there was…a lot of tension...”

“Like…sexual?” Tally asked, hushed.

Raelle nearly gagged despite herself, “God, I fucking hope not. But like…I don’t know. There’s a lot of history there, I can just tell. And like, he’s going to be in town for a few days-”

“Um, why?”

“I don’t know Abigail, he said he had time,”

“Time for what? Stalking? I don’t like it, Raelle. Showing up unannounced, tons of tension in the air,” Abigail clucked her tongue, “Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,”

Raelle groaned. That’s what she was afraid of.

“I know. I don’t want to think about it,” she shook her head to herself. “He also invited me for a drink?”

“In front of Scylla?” Abigail asked, incredulous.

“And she didn’t murder him on the spot?” Tally’s tone matched Abigail’s.

Raelle almost snorted. It was a well-known fact that despite herself…Scylla had a jealous streak, and that jealous streak could be quite a mean one. Raelle’s was pretty bad, but Scylla’s…Scylla’s was another level. She would bare her teeth and her eyes would flash in warning, and something in her gaze, when she was like that, always sent a chill down Raelle’s spine. She wouldn’t necessarily put murder past a jealous Scylla…

Still, their words made her laugh.

“No, she didn’t actually say anything. He sort of…insisted, almost? Like dude, it’s a beer, I’m not that upset about it that I would go to you to have another one. Not high on my list of things I want to do: grab a drink with my girlfriend’s ex.”

“Yeah that’s…really weird…” Abigail conceded. “Maybe he wanted to make up for just showing up out of nowhere?”

“Maybe,” Raelle sighed. “I don’t know what he wants, really, and I guess…” Raelle worried at her lip for a moment. “I don’t know,”

“Maybe he wants to talk to you,” Tally reasoned, which gave Raelle pause. That…could make sense, except that until that night, he apparently hadn’t known that Scylla had a girlfriend for him to talk to. And, besides…she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him. 

“What the hell about?” Raelle asked, incredulous, and Tally huffed.

“Well, I don’t know, Raelle. Just seems like a weird thing to offer and make a whole thing out of…”

Raelle sighed. “Sorry, Tal. I mean…it’s possible, but if that’s the case…why not just say ‘Hey can we talk’?”

Abigail snorted, “In front of his ex? He may be stupid but I doubt he has a death wish…”

Raelle shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not going to his hotel, I’m not having a beer with him. I don’t even want to think about seeing him again. He’s…I mean, he’s kind of not my concern, honestly. I just…” Raelle sighed, “Never mind. I’m just…being stupid,” she muttered. 

“No argument there, shitbird. But you’re not allowed to leave it at that, sorry. What are you being stupid about this time?” Abigail asked smoothly, which had Raelle chuckling despite herself.

“I just need you guys to tell me I’m being ridiculous. Him being here it just…makes me remember how much about Scylla I don’t really know.”

“And that’s got you jealous?” Tally asked.

Raelle sighed, “I mean, yeah. He obviously knows her past, he was in it. And like…despite myself…I kind of want to ask. I’m not going to, because I love Scylla and I trust her, but I just…I’m curious.”

“I’d be, too. I’d also be jealous as all hell.” Abigail said, and Raelle could just _see_ her nodding, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. 

“I think I would be too,” Tally offered.

“I mean, this ex just shows up out of nowhere. And like, no offense to your girl, Raelle, but she’s usually pretty chill. Like, her emotions, as we see them anyway, are mildly happy, mildly sad, mildly annoyed, and quietly angry. Like, she works with dead people, not a lot fazes her, but her ex shows up and suddenly she’s emoting more than we’ve probably ever seen her? Uh yeah I’d be a bit upset in your shoes. Who does this guy think he is and why does he get to make her react like that? What does he mean to her, really?”

“And I think it’s just…normal, Raelle. Remember when Gerit was keeping his marriage from me?” Tally asked, “And I could tell he was hiding something. I was only with him for a few months. You’ve been with Scylla for years, and you’ve always been good about waiting for her to open up. Patient. And we know how hard that is for you. So like…yeah, having him just show up must have felt like a slap in the face,” Tally added. 

Raelle let out a frustrated noise, “So, okay, it’s a reasonable reaction, then?”

“Oh, there’s hardly any reason to it, I’m just saying, I’d be upset too,” Abigail clarified unhelpfully. 

“I feel ridiculous for being upset,” she muttered. “Like…I’ve accepted this about Scylla for a long time. I feel like I’m using him as an excuse to finally, actually be upset about it,”

“Don’t be,” Tally said, her voice once again grave. “Listen to your gut, Raelle. It’s never served us wrong. If you think there’s more there…”

“I don’t think that there’s…necessarily _more_ there, but there is _something_. There was always going to be, but it never bothered me as much before because…the past is the past, I guess?” Raelle let out a frustrated noise. “I don’t know. I don’t think…I don’t think Porter is necessarily planning anything, or was like, counting on making me upset, since he didn’t even know about me until he showed up. But…there was just something there, between them. And not necessarily something good…” she scrunched her features as she tried to gather her thoughts.

That tension had haunted her thoughts, even after her bath with Scylla. Scylla had remained mostly silent, and Raelle knew better than to ask the myriad of questions she had circling in her mind. She was burning up inside with them, dying for answers, but she knew how quickly Scylla could shut down, and she didn’t want their otherwise lovely day to be soured to the point that Scylla left her, cold and naked and alone, in their bathtub. 

She hadn’t wanted to pressure or push, but it meant she’d also ended up lost in thought, neither of them talking much through their bath.

And the sex that Raelle had so been looking forward to had not happened when they finally did head to bed. The memory of that tension (some of it still lingering on Scylla’s features, if nowhere else) had nagged at Raelle. 

Indeed, the tension hadn’t been good, but it had been loaded. Heavy. 

Dangerous, Raelle realized. There was an undercurrent of danger so strong that it had been nearly suffocating. A warning was being communicated, and though Porter had brought it on…it wasn’t him who was giving it.

It was…Scylla. 

It was Scylla with Porter. 

The realization did nothing to quell the unease in her gut. 

“‘Well, they’re exes for a reason, right?” Abigail pulled Raelle from her thoughts

“‘That’s the thing,” Raelle shook her head, “Obviously, yes, they broke up for some reason. But I don’t even know what that reason is,” she hadn’t meant to say it as a whine, but that was how it came out.

She really, well and truly knew so little about Scylla’s past…

“Sounds like it’s all just got you on edge,” Tally observed, “Have you talked to Scylla about it?”

“Scylla basically shut down after he left, so not really. I don’t know when we’ll talk about it, but for now it’s better to just let her process,” Raelle sighed. 

“Well, we’re here for you, at any rate,” Tally offered.

Raelle smiled a small smile at her phone, “Thanks, Tal. I know. I’ll keep you guys updated, but for now I gotta let you guys go: time for work. See you in a few days for drinks?”

“Count on it. Now go save some lives,” Abigail said proudly. 

“I’ll do my best,”

“You always do,” the words were fond and sincere, and Raelle couldn’t help but soften. 

“Thanks, guys,” she said sincerely.

“Anytime. Except like. Before 8am,” Abigail said.

Raelle rolled her eyes. “Bye guys,”

She hung up to the sounds of their shouted “Goodbye!” and “Have a good day!”s, shaking her head and smiling despite herself. 

\---

Scylla couldn’t blame Raelle for her reaction the day before. Of all of the things…of all of the people Scylla would have thought would be at their door, she would have said her dead parents before she said Porter. 

Her dead. Fucking. Parents. 

That was how thoroughly, how deeply, she had buried Porter and the past she’d left behind with him.

With good reason. 

Scylla sighed to herself, pulling back from where she’d been staring into a microscope, observing a tissue sample to try to determine cause of death of their most recent cadaver, but she just…couldn’t focus. She would be useless at her job with her mind…distracted, by another problem, so she sat back at her stool, allowing herself a minute to space out and think. She would return to the tissue sample after: after all, it wasn’t like they were in a rush to save the patient. 

The perks of working with the dead.

She had left Porter buried in the past because, quite simply: she wasn’t that person anymore. She wasn’t. She had worked so hard, for so long, to grow. To move on from…from the girl who Porter had known. 

And she had come a long way. She had matured. Healed. Moved on. 

Coped. She’d found herself, and she’d found peace, she’d found purpose, and she’d found Raelle, and all she wanted to do was to move on, and build a life, with her beautiful girlfriend. All she’d wanted was to leave the past behind.

Not because she was ashamed of it, though she knew she should be. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to be ashamed. To feel true remorse. She’d been through a lot, and she had done a lot, but it made her who she was. It led her to Raelle, and Raelle had led her into the light, and so she wanted to keep her darkness from Raelle, as much as she possibly could.

Because Raelle loved her, but…she doubted that Raelle could love her darkness. 

Scylla sighed heavily to herself.

She had left Porter for a myriad of reasons, most of them she wouldn’t fully realize until much later, after her departure. Years down the line. At the time…she had left because she knew she had to. Something was going to break…something had already been broken, and she’d known it would only be a matter of time before her downward spiral would end, in one way or another.

She’d left because she knew she would have done something that she would come to regret. Not that ending his life wouldn’t have been satisfying…she would have enjoyed it. She would have enjoyed it so much. She’d wanted to, as well. 

But her bloodlust was held at bay by simple logic: he was too close to her. He was her boyfriend, and in crimes of passion, it was always the partner. She wouldn’t be able to lie or fight (indeed, the only two non-lethal means she had for conflict resolution at the time) her way out of an investigation, and she knew part of her wouldn’t have even wanted to. A part of her would have wanted to gloat. To taunt authorities with the fact that she’d killed four people before they’d caught her. To hold her head high and sneer as they arrested her. Snarl and bare her teeth at her trial, and show them the monster she held within her. Tell them she wasn’t sorry, because she wasn’t. Those deaths had been delicious, and she would do it again, and she would sound remorseless and her sentence would surely be for life. 

And she would have laughed at them. Laughed as she was sent to jail to spend the rest of her days there, rotting. Maybe Scylla would have beaten her cellmate to within an inch of her life, and perhaps she would still have laughed. The Scylla of yesteryear would have pushed and pushed and pushed until they decided to execute her, and she would have just laughed as they injected her with chemicals and finally ended her goddamn suffering.

So much suffering. 

Some part of her…didn’t want that. Some part of her knew that there was more to life than what she’d been living, and it’d taken two weeks of spree killing for her to realize that. To realize that there could be more to life than pain. To realize that she had control over that pain.

Or at least…she _could_ have control over that pain. 

She’d left out of self-preservation, however skewed her sense of it was. She’d left because even at her worst, she knew she was heading down a path from which there was no return, and some part of her…some small, desperate part, knew that she couldn’t hit that point. Knew that adding Porter to her body count would be the last nail in her coffin, and she had already put so many in. She couldn’t continue down the path she’d started on, ever-darker, with no light at the end of the tunnel. 

So she’d left. Packed a bag at 2am when the realization had hit her: when the thought that she could just grab her dad’s Swiss Army Knife and slide the blade – which she always kept sharp – right across Porter’s throat and bathe in his blood as it spilled out of him. 

And goddess knew, she’d been known to indulge such an impulse before. 

A few days before, in fact. 

So she packed. She rolled out of bed and grabbed the knife and shoved it into a rucksack that was thrown into a corner. She shoved random clothes into it, threw open one of their drawers and took all of the cash she knew Porter had hidden there. She’d made enough noise to wake him up, but he’d been drinking and was sluggish. By the time he’d roused enough to ask her what she was doing, she was slamming the door behind her. By the time he was out the door to look for her, she was on a back path through the woods. 

She hitch-hiked with the hope that whoever picked her up would give her a reason. Not that she needed one, but the desperation to do something, anything – to hurt or maim, when she no longer had her favorite punching bag: when everything was changing, and drastically, and her sense of control was tenuous at best – only grew with the distance she put between them. 

But no one gave her a reason. The people who picked her up ended up being mostly families. Nice families. With young children. One had a twelve-year-old, and Scylla had spent the entire ride talking quietly to him, fascinated despite herself. He seemed so…normal, and sometimes she wondered if that could have ever been her. 

And, well…while Scylla was certainly a killer, and itching to expend her nerves…she wasn’t going to murder a whole family. And she wasn’t going to murder a child’s parents right in front of them. She… didn’t doubt that she physically couldn’t, but it wouldn’t be easy and it would be a mess, and despite herself, a part of her simply didn’t want to. After all: it had happened to her, and look how she’d turned out? 

No, no one deserved that. So she’d refrained, digging the soft pads of her fingers into the Swiss Army Knife blade to satisfy the violence that still sang in her veins. 

It took a while, but she’d eventually ended up on the other end of the country, and…well, maybe it was stupid. But…it was beautiful. She’d traveled a lot with her parents: they’d moved around a lot for work, but she’d never seen the East Coast, and the air at the ocean felt…different. 

They’d had a beach near their place in Oregon, too. Her and Porter. But it wasn’t a nice beach: just lots of large rocks, cold and dreary. Lots of dead wood. 

She’d killed a man on that beach. 

Her first, actually. 

Scylla sighed at the memory, looking over to the cadaver on her exam table. 

The man had been drunk, and she wasn’t. Pushing him and watching him fall onto the hard rocks on the beach, stumbling and struggling to get up, head bleeding from where he’d whacked it too hard, had been…too easy. She’d taken her time walking towards him, watching her prey struggle. 

The intention hadn’t been to kill him, actually. She’d had no intentions at all, until she’d seen him walking. Alone. 

She hadn’t planned on indulging her murderous fantasies that night. Hadn’t planned on ever really indulging them, much as the urges became stronger and stronger, desperate to release that which she tried to keep locked inside of her: the true extent of her darkness. 

They’d left a party. She didn’t even know the guy, they just happened to leave at the same time, and walk in the same direction. 

She was just going to go home. She’d had some to drink, some to smoke, but she hadn’t been in the mood, on edge in a way that meant she didn’t want to be fucked up. On edge in a way that saw her going home from a party, basically sober.

For once. 

She had never seen the man before. He was ahead of her on the road, by a good twenty feet, in the dead of night, beer in hand that he occasionally brought up to his lips as they walked. He hadn’t done anything, and indeed, he seemed quite content with minding his own business. She wondered if he even knew that she’d been there, behind him. But despite all that...she’d felt her lip curling, watching him as he stumbled, and she realized...the things she could do to him…

She’d gotten close to murder, before. When she’d get in fights, her intention was almost always to maim, if not worse. If she were to kill, in her mind…it was a bonus. A means to defend herself: to murder and claim it was because they were trying to hurt her. 

An excuse.

But that was usually when she was mad. When someone was doing something to piss her off, however innocuous it was. This guy hadn’t done a thing except be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, because Scylla was an opportunist – as much then as she was now. And she had realized that, actually, it would be literally fucking easy kill this man, and, well…from there, it’d become a game. Would she do it? _Could_ she do it? She’d always wondered if she was capable of murder. If she was truly so damaged, so beyond saving, that she could just take someone’s life. 

Like hers had been taken, all those years back. 

The thought had her clenching her fists at her sides on her lab stool. After a few moments, she carefully released the tension, taking a calming breath, and then another. Exercises to help her keep her temper down, in Raelle’s absence. 

In the end…she’d done it, and she’d done it because she could. She realized how easy it would be, and then it was just there…taunting her. An impulse she couldn’t refuse. So she’d indulged it. 

The ledge beside the path they walked wasn’t a large one: a few feet. But he was drunk and the rocks were smooth but blunt. Like a rag doll, he fell. Hit his head. Looked up, dazed, looked around. But she’d calmly walked down to him, over the rocks, careful to not hurt herself on them. 

She’d done what she did and then she walked home, violence singing in her veins and her head blissfully, shockingly empty, her hands pleasantly numb, her body buzzing. She felt like she was floating, the entire world muted around her. The chaos inside of her, quieted.

And for so long…she couldn’t refuse that violence that lurked within her. She allowed herself to be swallowed whole by the darkness, desperate for at least some kind of embrace: for something to distract from the pain.

And now?

Now, she’d put thousands of miles and more than a decade between herself and that bloody, rocky beach. Between herself and that…that reckless and angry, uncontrollable child who took lives on impulse. Who started with one body and hadn’t been able to control herself, claiming two other lives in quick succession and being impossibly stupid (and impossibly lucky) in her process of hiding her violence from the world. 

Scylla took in a shaky breath. 

She’d left because she’d needed to. She’d left because it was the right thing to do. She’d left to get away from it all: the investigations and Porter’s constant kicked-puppy eyes and his insufferable need to always be hers, no matter what she did. He needed a backbone, she needed to leave before she ended him for not having one, and so she’d left.

Moved to the East Coast. Applied to college. 

The decision had been…impromptu. She’d made it in just under the wire for the application, and the only reason she’d done it…well, there were two. One, was to fill up her time. She had so much of it, looking for a job and living off a few thousand she’d managed to squirrel away in savings. Thankfully, she’d arrived in the South, and the living expenses were lower than in Oregon, which was…nice. But finding a job was hard and made her blood boil, and for her own self-preservation, she realized she needed to find something to fill her time before murder became a hobby. 

The second reason…came after her first murder on the East Coast.

She’d made it two months and change before she’d needed to give in to the impulse. And giving in had let her breathe. Relax. 

She’d ended up among the crowd of people who gathered once the man’s body was discovered.

Also on a beach. Sandy, this time. 

She’d seen the medical examiner, then. And she’d watched, fascinated despite the fact that they did nothing more than take some photos and put the body in a van and drive away. 

She’d decided, then and there, to study to become a medical examiner. How cool would it be, for her to have been the one to take a life, and then examine their body after? Take her time? Pick them apart? To see them up close and personal. It’d sent a thrill down her spine. She could very possibly examine her own bodies. She could look at the cadavers she had killed. She could learn to make a kill invisible: to know what medical examiners looked for. At the very least, she could learn what they examined to minimize the chances of being caught…

So she’d decided, and though the process turned out to be…grueling, she did manage to get into college. Pre-med. 

With her mind distracted and working on something – processing something, besides anger and trauma and anger, in that cycle – she suddenly had other things to do with her time besides start fights and make friends with the local drug dealers. Suddenly, she was able to start thinking about, and doing, things besides murder and that…that, in its own right, had helped her with starting to actually plan. To evolve, over her schooling track. To learn to take time: to savor the kill, to savor the process. To choose a location, and prepare for them, and then hunt a target, and take them and do whatever she pleased until she ended them. Until she quietly eradicated any evidence of her presence, and sometimes…of theirs. 

It had been a delicious, and necessary, evolution. 

All because she’d decided, that fateful morning back in Oregon, to make that change.

To leave. 

She had put it all behind her, and now?

Now, suddenly, it had all come roaring back. She hardly knew what to make of it, so she could only imagine Raelle…

Scylla sighed to herself and the cadaver, spinning on her stool and standing. She decided she needed more than a minute. She needed a break: a full, at-least-fifteen-minute break. 

In fact…she needed more than that. 

She needed a few days, actually... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scylla, bb...what are you up to... 👀
> 
> A bit more of a deep dive into serial killer Scylla for you all, I hope you enjoyed it! Feed the author with a comment or kudos if so, and I'll be back next Saturday with more dark goodness! 
> 
> Until then! Take care of yourselves, drink some water, and stay safe!


	3. A Complication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Welcome back to another chapter! No major notes for this one so I'll leave you all with a thank you for the comments and kudos, and, well! Enjoy the next bit! :3

Really, Scylla didn’t trust Porter farther than she could throw him. She didn’t trust Porter in the slightest. She didn’t know what he was doing there, but she knew it was nothing good. It’d been a few years over a decade since she’d left him. He had no reason to have been looking for her. No reason to be trying to find her. She’d made it quite clear that she didn’t want to see him, leaving the way she had, after all. Without looking back, and with no way for him to contact her. Nothing.

She didn’t know what he wanted or what he was doing, or _why_ he was suddenly around, and that put her on edge. 

Knowing Porter, though…well, if she had to guess: perhaps he wanted her back. Why that moment, she wasn’t sure. What had pushed him to seek her out? What had pushed him to think it was a good idea? From one stalker to another, she knew that he had to have seen Raelle in the few social media posts that Scylla was tagged in. As a general rule, Scylla tried to stay away from social media. She hardly used her own, but she knew it would look…weird, for her to not have at least some social media presence. And, alas…she needed it for conferences. 

But that meant that Scylla’s social media usage was enough that even with only a few minutes of research and two brain cells to rub together, someone could figure out that Raelle was Scylla’s girlfriend. It wasn’t like Scylla was an insignificant part of Raelle’s life: she knew for a fact that more than one post with them in it had very romantic implications about it. 

So why had he claimed he didn’t know that Scylla had a girlfriend? What was he playing at? Why had he chosen the moment he had, to reappear into her life? 

To fuck everything up?

She scowled to herself, arms crossed, glaring at him as he stood in line at Starbucks. 

After her processing at the morgue a few days before, her non-existent aunt had died, quite suddenly, and she needed a few days' bereavement. Izadora, Scylla’s boss, didn’t know that Scylla didn’t have any family, and really, since Scylla’d met Raelle, she’d just used Raelle’s family as her own, if anyone asked. 

Izadora, despite being very used to death, had made a face. The personal side of death always seemed to bother her, and Scylla understood. Like Scylla, Izadora didn’t particularly like pleasantries, and she was so used to death that she had to rein in her morbid sense of humor, so she’d simply gotten quiet before nodding and saying she was sorry. 

Scylla had assured her that they weren’t that close (subtly trying to let Izadora know that she could definitely say whatever insensitive thing she likely would have said: actually, Scylla was desperate to hear it), and that she just needed time to help with funeral arrangements. 

It was really that easy. 

And so, with her newfound time off…she’d taken to stalking Porter. 

It almost felt like…well. Like a hunt. The thought had a shiver running through her, but no. No. She was not on a hunt. She hadn’t been on a hunt in over a year and a half, so this was not a hunt, because she didn’t need to hunt, because she was done. So it decidedly _was not_ a hunt: she was just keeping tabs. 

Porter had kept his word. Hadn’t strayed anywhere near their apartment since he’d left it. He was indeed staying at the hotel he mentioned, so Scylla had no doubt that the room was also correct. He spent his days at the hotel, doing whatever, and then going out for a walk. He had clearly bought a week-long membership at a local gym, because he always went there, and then he would treat himself to some restaurant or other, and then he would walk some more before returning to the hotel.

She didn’t…get it. Why come to town? Why stick around? There was nothing there in way of tourism. Literally nothing. None of their buildings were famous. Their most notable piece of artwork was a graffiti mural on the corner of Church and Westin. There were local museums and such, sure, to entertain the locals. There were bars. Like any other town. But…there was nothing special. 

The only thing in the whole area that meant anything to Porter was Scylla, and she hated that she knew that, because it meant he was solely there for her. She didn’t like the implications, and she certainly didn’t like that she didn’t know what his intentions were. 

Part of her couldn’t help but wonder if he knew she was tailing him. Like some sick game of cat and mouse.

She couldn’t help but think that he did know. It wouldn’t surprise her, at any rate. Because they’d always been toxic, like that. Fits of rage and jealousy, no trust in their relationship, nothing that really bound them except how fucked up they both were. 

And she couldn’t help but think about…well, how else would he be getting his kicks, but by knowing he still had that little bit of power over her? Power to make her pay attention to him, because she knew that her silence at the apartment had spoken volumes: she wasn’t happy to see him, but she’d been rash to have not tried to hide her hostility. She’d just been so…blindsided. Too shocked to stop her mask, that for so long she’d worn as her real face, from slipping, and in doing that – in showing that side of herself – he knew that his presence still meant something. Whether he knew what that something was…Scylla wasn’t sure. Did he know that he was a threat? And if so, just how much of a threat did he think he was? 

Because he was a big one. Bigger than Scylla was willing to have around, which was why she had to keep tabs on him. 

It was her last day to do so, though, which she also didn’t like. 

She just didn’t fucking like Porter, honestly. She didn’t like not knowing his game and she didn’t like his presence, and she didn’t like that he pulled at that darkness in her, so long soothed by having Raelle in her life…

She clenched her jaw, pushing the thoughts aside, and continued to observe.

\---

Raelle was running late. 

She thought she’d had lunch in the fridge in the breakroom. And as far as she had been aware, she did, so she hadn’t exactly been in a rush when she decided to take her break. She’d taken her time, relaxed a little, scrolled through her phone, and then went to get her food.

Of which, there was none. She searched the fridge and then groaned when she found the piece of paper, where her Hot Pocket from the day before had been.

_Sorry babe, I owe you one, will Venmo you! -Byron_

Fucking Byron. She’d angrily texted him, to which his only response had been: _Hot Pockets are so bad for you Raelle, so really, I saved you and you should be thanking me._

Which had Raelle rolling her eyes.

Normally, she wouldn’t care. Much as she was loath to admit it, especially to his face, Byron was her favorite of her coworkers. To the point that, had she had any other food, she would have forgiven him for the transgression. 

_You owe me double, that was my only lunch you asshat._ She’d shot back, annoyed.

_Fuck, my bad. I’m sorry Raelle I thought the Tupperware underneath it was yours too_

She’d rolled her eyes, deciding she’d ream him out later.

There was a Starbucks close by, which she was going to send him a picture of the receipt for, and hold him to that “Venmo you” bit. 

The walk helped calm her a little, even if she was in a hurry. She only had an hour for lunch, which, while good…wasn’t ideal when half of her break had already sped by. She didn’t have a lot of time, and she cut through the park that led to Starbucks, glancing to her side and then freezing and blinking, shocked. 

There, sat on a bench, eyes trained forward, book open in her lap, her legs crossed, was…Scylla.

Raelle furrowed her brow but quickly changed course, confirming, as she got closer, that it was indeed Scylla, a small scowl on her features, entirely absorbed in whatever she was looking at and not looking all too happy about it. 

“Scyl?” she called, and Scylla physically jumped, turning to stare, wide-eyed, as Raelle approached her. 

Raelle couldn’t help but laugh at the almost comical look Scylla had on her face, thoroughly shocked. 

“Raelle?” Scylla asked, for a moment genuinely looking like she had seen a ghost. Her eyes darted to where she’d been staring, before turning her attention back to Raelle, who finally reached her and bent over for a kiss, which Scylla returned. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, and Raelle laughed.

“I could ask you the same thing, beautiful,” she could feel her features scrunch from the sheer size of her smile. “This is a pleasant surprise,” she spoke her own thoughts aloud.

“A surprise indeed,” Scylla acquiesced with a chuckle, eyes flicking to the side as she shifted on the bench to face Raelle. 

“I didn’t know you had a break now. Bit far, isn’t it?” Raelle asked, and Scylla pursed her lips.

“Needed the air,” she said simply, and Raelle nodded. 

“Well, I wish you had texted me! Had I known, I would have met you here. We could have had lunch,”

Scylla blinked, “Oh, I…I hadn’t thought of it,”

Raelle raised her eyebrows and Scylla looked like she realized the words she said, and she quickly shook her head. 

“I didn’t realize I was coming here,” she clarified sheepishly, “Otherwise, I would have texted you,”

Raelle chuckled. “Okay gorgeous. Well, next time, then,”

Scylla smiled at her, her expression softening fondly, “Next time, definitely,”

“I’ll leave you to it, I’m actually in a hurry, Byron took my lunch and-” Raelle was cut off as Scylla suddenly stood, pulling her in for a kiss. 

Not that Raelle was complaining. She happily kissed back, letting out a small, surprised, but pleased, noise. 

Scylla pulled away, and Raelle watched as her eyes flicked to the side again, and she took in a sharp breath, glancing down at her watch. 

“I’m sorry Raelle, I have to head back, but I’ll see you at home?” she smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes, which once again looked off to the side. 

Despite that, Raelle nodded dumbly. “Yeah, obviously.” She grinned. “Have a great day, babe,”

“You too beautiful,” Scylla glanced at her, squeezing her hand before taking her leave: off like a shot. 

Raelle turned as Scylla started walking, her pace brisk, nearly making a beeline, though with her head slightly turned to the left. 

Raelle looked after her, enjoying the view, before following Scylla’s gaze, curious despite herself. What had Scylla’s rapt attention? It was…odd. She’d definitely seemed…distracted. That interaction had certainly felt…a little weird. Usually, if either of them were in the same vicinity as the other, they texted. They tried to coordinate lunch hours, to eat together. When Scylla had been in her last year at her residency, indeed, sometimes those lunches were the only time that Raelle really got to see her for a day or two. 

Then again…Scylla had been acting…weird. 

Noting crazy, just…tense. Tenser than usual. She’d arrived home late a few times, saying it was a case at work being tricky, and between that and having to explain things to the residents, it just took her a little extra time to leave.

Despite that…Raelle had a sneaking suspicion that a certain blonde ex may have something to do with Scylla’s mood. Raelle didn’t like to think about it, because they still had yet to properly talk about it, and that irked her, and she didn’t want to be irked. She didn’t like being irked with Scylla.

And, well…it wasn’t necessarily unusual, that they hadn’t coordinated lunches. Sometimes, Scylla needed her alone time. Raelle got it. Clearly, Scylla hadn’t expected Raelle to burst her “me time” bubble. 

It wasn’t necessarily unusual, under normal circumstances. But they weren’t under normal circumstances. They were under very odd ones, indeed. And clearly, something had captured Scylla’s attention, and had had it since before Raelle arrived. Something had filled her “me time”, so Raelle craned her neck, looking in the general direction Scylla was looking.

A figure on the other side of the street was striding at Scylla’s pace, and Raelle blinked, stomach dropping.

Porter. 

It was…Porter.

Porter, with his sandy blonde hair and his tan bomber jacket, walking down the sidewalk and looking both ways at the intersection he was approaching before crossing, Starbucks bag and cup clasped in one hand, the other swinging by his side. 

Raelle stared, shocked. She glanced back, but Scylla had disappeared, as had Porter, and she couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine and left an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Had…had Scylla known that Porter was there? Had he been what had her so distracted? What was he doing there? What was _she_ doing there?

It had to be a coincidence…right?

Raelle narrowed her eyes.

She suddenly found that she’d lost her appetite…

\---

The questions ate at her. 

What…had Scylla known that Porter was there the whole time? Or had she spotted him just as he’d left? 

That was more likely…right? 

The thoughts didn’t shut off for the rest of her shift, and Raelle hated that she couldn’t get them to shut up, because she didn’t want to think about it. Truly, she didn’t. She didn’t want to think about Porter because she felt like she’d been thinking about him far more than should ever be necessary to think of a significant other’s ex, but…but what did it mean that her significant other seemed to be…what? 

Tailing him? 

…meeting him? 

Raelle shook the poisonous thought from her head. No. She refused to even entertain the idea, because it was a ridiculous, traitorous one and she knew that it had no ground to stand on, and yet…she could feel it lingering, a dark doubt in the depths of her mind.

But that particular dangerous thought didn’t make any sense, and that was what made it all the worse. It didn’t make any sense. Scylla’s reaction to Porter had been…intense. But not…not good intense. She wouldn’t have wanted to go back to that…that intensity. 

Right? 

Raelle scowled to herself every time the thought looped back to the forefront of her mind. 

When she got home, she was surprised to see Scylla there: she had a tendency to arrive home after Raelle, just because her work was a bit farther away (which was also why, 90% of the time, she had their car and Raelle used public transit). Still, Raelle felt her shoulders slump a little, tension leaving them, at seeing her beautiful girlfriend, sat on their sofa and reading a book: likely the same one from the park.

“Hey,” Raelle greeted, coming in and giving her a kiss, “You’re home early,”

“Mmm,” Scylla hummed, sending Raelle a small smile. “Slow day, Izadora let me go early,”

“Did you make it back to work in time? You left that park in a hurry,” Raelle tried to sound casual as she asked, and Scylla furrowed her brow, a shadow passing over her features that was gone a second later as she pursed her lips. 

“I did make it, yeah. I’m sorry about that, I just…I really hadn’t been expecting to see you. It wasn’t a bad thing-” Scylla started in on an excuse, and Raelle plopped herself down on the couch next to Scylla. Scylla turned, opening herself up, and Raelle shifted contentedly into the embrace. 

“I know, Scyl. You were having you time, I could tell,” Raelle sighed. 

Scylla reached up and started stroking her hair. 

“I was, yeah,” she said, her voice almost sounding…absent.

Raelle wrapped her arms around Scylla’s waist and settled even more into her, Scylla leaning back a bit more on the couch, allowing them more room to properly cuddle, which Raelle appreciated. 

Still, she bit her lip, contemplating. Did she bring up Porter? Mention that she’d seen that he was in Starbucks? Mention that he clearly still had Scylla on edge? 

Raelle sucked in a deep breath, and tried, “So, Porter-”

Scylla sighed: it was heavy and sounded almost…annoyed. Raelle clamped her mouth shut, rethinking. She should ask. She should mention that she saw him, that she’d seen Scylla staring at him. She should make it clear that like it totally wasn’t a big deal but had Scylla known he was there? She should do it, yet…

Porter had Scylla on edge. Even just mentioning his name, Raelle could feel the stiffness settle into Scylla’s body: tension in her muscles. 

He really did set her off, didn’t he? 

“He really gets to you, doesn’t he?” Raelle asked, deciding to opt for a more indirect route. 

Scylla sighed. “He does,”

“I’ve never really seen you like this. Like you were around him,”

Scylla’s fingers stopped in their stroking, however temporarily. She restarted as she spoke. 

“I…know. I’m sorry. I just…Porter and I, we didn’t exactly have a…healthy relationship,”

“I gathered,” Raelle muttered. She turned in their embrace so that she could properly look at Scylla, pulling her head back from where she’d settled it on Scylla’s chest. “I saw that he was at the park, earlier.”

Scylla frowned, “You saw that?”

“Yeah. Did you…had you known he was there?”

One of Scylla’s eyebrows ticked: a small microexpression that signaled slight annoyance at the question, but, well…Raelle wanted to know. She had a right to know, really. 

Scylla shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I spotted him right before you saw me and…I don’t know, I guess I just got lost in thought. Seeing him, it…”

“It’s a lot,” Raelle surmised, and Scylla nodded, shutting her eyes, a slightly pained expression on her face. 

Raelle ignored the churning of her stomach. If Scylla said she hadn’t seen him until then, well…then that was that, and Raelle tried to be satisfied with that, ignoring the churning in her gut. Ignoring the cold tingle that ran down her spine, sharp like icicles. Ignoring the quiet alarm that had started to sound.

“Well…it’s been a few days now. With any luck, he’ll be out of town soon, and we won’t have to deal with him again.” Raelle tried, and Scylla took in a deep breath, shaking her head. 

She put her book aside and wrapped her arms around Raelle, kissing her forehead. 

“With any luck,” she repeated.

\---

Raelle was early. She knew that she was early, because she’d actually gotten out of work on time for once, and honestly…she needed a drink. She wasn’t going to meet her unit for drinks for another half hour, but she found herself at the bar despite that, walking in to see it mostly empty. She’d hung up her jacket and made a beeline for the bar.

It wasn’t really her kind of place. It was Abigail’s pick that week, and she’d wanted to check out a new bar that was all about ambiance, so that they could charge more for drinks. The whole thing was bathed in a blue neon light, the shelves of liquor decorated in a minimalist style, all backlit in blue. Raelle knew she’d leave with a headache, but she also knew, from first glance, that they wouldn’t last long in the bar, anyway.

Still, she walked over and asked for a whiskey on the rocks. 

“Rough day, Raelle?” a gruff voice next to her asked, and she whipped around immediately. Porter held up his hands in surrender after placing his jacket on the back of the high seat at the bar. He sent her a small, sympathetic smile. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,”

He sat down and leaned against the bar, motioning for the bartender and ordering a Bud Light. 

As he did that, Raelle let out a breath, processing his sudden, unexpected presence. “Porter, what-” she took in a deep breath, trying to calm her hammering heart, her manners kicking in a moment later. “Fuck, sorry I just…wasn’t expecting to see anyone I knew here,” she said, shaking her head to herself and quirking her eyebrow at him. The “let alone you” went unsaid, but was clearly implied, and Porter smiled sheepishly. 

“Yeah, doesn’t really seem like your kind of place. Not that I know you that well, but you just…” he tilted his head at her appraisingly. “You don’t strike me as the type for chic, modern bars. You’re more of a classic Irish pub kinda gal, I can tell.”

Raelle couldn’t help but bristle a little, at that. Mostly because Porter had no business trying to guess what kind of bars she preferred, correct as he was. But also…he had no right to try to guess anything when it came to her: they weren’t friends, and they certainly weren’t acquainted enough to try to read each other’s personalities like that in a semi-empty bar at 5:30pm on a Tuesday. 

And, honestly…Raelle kind of thought his few days before heading north would have been up. It’d been nearly a week since he’d showed up at their doorstep. 

“I think it comes with being military, you know?” he continued, either electing to ignore Raelle’s budding scowl, or too inebriated to properly notice it. How long had he been in the bar? She hadn’t seen him when she’d walked in, and it wasn’t like there were a ton of people, but still…his breath reeked of alcohol. So much so, that she could smell it despite the distance between them. “You yearn for the simple and the rustic. Feels real when the rest of the world…doesn’t.”

“So what are you doing here, then?” she asked flatly. Clearly, it wasn’t his idea of an ideal bar, and there were several old-timey pubs in the area. Her usual haunts, actually.

She leaned against the bar next to Porter, eyeing the bartender as he came over and handed her her drink, finally. He also handed Porter his beer.

“You wanna put it on my tab?” he asked, and Raelle sent him a subtle glare, which had him raising his hands in surrender, “Just an offer. I still owe you for the beer,”

Raelle rolled her eyes and handed the bartender a ten, telling him to keep the change. 

“I don’t care about the beer, Porter,” she told him flatly.

“Well, I wanted to pay you back, regardless. And I’m here,” he indicated the bar, “because this bar is open, and it’s close to my hotel, and a beer here is just as good as a beer anywhere,” he tilted his bottle in her direction, waiting for her to clink her glass against it. 

She raised an eyebrow at him before lifting her whiskey to her lips and pointedly taking a sip. 

Porter huffed a little laugh at that, shaking his head. “And what brings you here? Rough day, Miss Whiskey-on-the-Rocks?”

“Meeting my unit for drinks, just early.”

Porter tilted his head, “Mmm,” he seemed to not believe her, but she wasn’t exactly in the mood to tell him she’d been having a rough few days at home. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him that despite respecting their space, as he had sincerely said he would, his presence had still seeped into their lives, quiet and deadly like a poison.

It wasn’t that Raelle had a reason to not trust Scylla. She didn’t, really. She wanted to trust Scylla. But it was clear that…that there was something. Something that Raelle wasn’t being told. Something that Scylla wasn’t telling her, and she didn’t like that. It was clear that Porter’s presence in their town had put a weight on Scylla’s shoulders, put a darkness in her spark, and she was more on edge than Raelle had ever seen her. 

It was…a different edge, than the one she’d had during her residency. That one had been born from stress. This one? 

Raelle wasn’t entirely sure.

Raelle didn’t like it. She didn’t like that despite herself, those lingering questions and doubts were still at the back of her mind. She hated that sometimes, it meant that she’d honest-to-god felt suspicious of Scylla. After all, Scylla had given her no reason to be suspicious of her, besides that one weird encounter at the park. 

Honestly, excepting when Raelle had brought him up…Scylla hadn’t even talked about Porter. Like, at all, since his arrival.

Which was part of the problem. There was an elephant in the room, and it was Porter, and Raelle sort of resented that despite the lack of his actual, physical presence in their apartment, his impact - that tension he’d brought - still hung around like a ghost. She hated that rather than blame Porter for his sudden appearance (though she did that, too), she mostly didn’t understand Scylla’s reaction to him, and Scylla absolutely did not discuss him beyond the same three lines: he means nothing, he meant nothing, he is nothing. 

It was a lie, and that bothered Raelle more than anything else. 

Raelle knew that Scylla lied to her. She wasn’t stupid, and she was surprisingly good at reading people. It came with the territory in the Army: being able to read people was a skill that had helped ensure her survival on more than one occasion. 

She knew that Scylla lied about her past, the few times she talked about it beyond, again, the same three points: she’d seen her parents murdered before her very eyes, she’d moved around a lot, she’d been in foster care. She was okay discussing college, but anything beyond her classes was passed off as “not much”: dismissed, stepped around, evaded. And that was it: she either didn’t talk about anything else, or she lied. Never anything big, but it always left Raelle with a small, nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. And that feeling always came back when Scylla lied.

Always small things: small enough that Raelle chose to overlook it, rather than call Scylla out on it. She knew that Scylla was an exceptionally private person, to the point that most of what Raelle had learned about her past had been divulged over their entire time together. Scylla was happy to talk about anything else, and Raelle wasn’t one to begrudge people their pasts: hers, after all, had its fair share of pain and misery. 

But she trusted Scylla with it, anyway. And she tried to be understanding of Scylla’s boundaries and privacy but…sometimes, it got to her. There was still that barrier between them: Scylla didn’t trust Raelle with her past, or maybe didn’t trust her reaction to it, and that stung.

It all had been getting to her more, after Porter had showed up. Who was he to Scylla, really? Why did she act like a completely different person around him? She’d never seen Scylla so…cold, almost. She knew that Scylla was cold when she was angry but…she’d never seen her like that. 

The realization that there may be an entire side to Scylla that she didn’t know was, honestly…upsetting, if not entirely unsurprising. Raelle was authentically herself with Scylla, and she thought that Scylla was with her, too. As least, to the extent that she was comfortable being. 

But now, all of Scylla’s excuses rang hollow. Because they were excuses. Deflections. 

And normally, Raelle would let her get away with it, because she loved her.

God, did she love her. 

It was harder now though, with Porter hanging over their heads. 

Harder to ignore. Harder to _want_ to ignore…

To her surprise, Porter turned to fully face her. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. I wanted to talk to you, Raelle,”

Raelle raised an eyebrow at that, surprised despite herself. 

He nodded. “Yeah. I really was hoping you would come by the hotel,” he held up his beer as Raelle glared, “For a drink!” he quickly amended, “Especially after I said I’d stay out of you guys’ hair. I just…I wanted to talk to you about Scylla. How long you two been together?”

Raelle shrugged. “Few years,” she said, vague, because it was none of his damn business. 

“She ever tell you about her childhood?”

Raelle scowled to herself, but tried to hide it in the rim of her glass as she took a drink. “The pertinent bits,” Raelle said tersely. 

“She ever tell you about me?”

Raelle cut him a sidelong glare. 

“The pertinent bits,” she reiterated, and Porter laughed.

“Man, she hasn’t told you a damn thing, has she? And yet, she’s got her claws deep into you, huh?”

She furrowed her brow, and Porter sighed. 

“She does that, you know. She buries deep inside of you, like a maggot. Eats at your heart until it’s entirely hers, until she’s swallowed you whole and she’ll do whatever the fuck she wants with you, and you’ll damn near thank her for it, too,”

Okay, now Raelle knew he was definitely drunk. 

She rolled her eyes at the drunken ramblings, looking away from Porter and taking another sip of her drink. 

Another huff from Porter. God, what was so goddamn funny?!

“She hasn’t told you a thing. About me. About her. About who she really is.”

They were statements, not questions, and that irked Raelle. She shut her eyes, subtly clenching her jaw. Raelle couldn’t help but glimpse at him, after saying those words. He observed her, glassy eyes as focused as they could be, one eyebrow raised expectantly, as though he knew she’d take the bait.

Raelle hated that by glancing at him, she already had. 

He scoffed, the sound almost sounding like a sad, humorless laugh. “That’s so like her,”

Raelle hated that she turned to fully look at him. She hated that she was so curious despite herself. She hated that she was hearing this from her girlfriend’s ex. She hated that she was so desperate to know something, anything, about her own girlfriend – the woman she _loved_ – from said woman’s ex, of all people. 

And she hated that Porter knew that, from his small nod alone. 

He sighed, “Look, Raelle. I like you. You seem cool, and I respect that you were in the military. I don’t really want to have to ruin this not-quite-hostile thing we have going on here,” he indicated the both of them, “But I’m going to. You don’t know her, Raelle. You just don’t. Whoever you think she is, she’s not. And whoever you think she was: you’re wrong. Whoever she’s fabricated for you…whatever personality this is. It’s not Scylla. I doubt you’ve ever met the real Scylla, let alone handled her as she really is. And honestly? I don’t think you could. And I don’t think you should.”

The anger was instantaneous. Raelle straightened up, glaring at Porter, turning her entire body to face him square-on.

How…fucking dare he?

God, and to think that, for even just a moment, however brief it had been, she’s thought maybe Porter was an okay guy. Clearly, he still held some kind of torch for Scylla, and wasn’t exactly a huge fan of Raelle, to boot. 

He didn’t seem too offended or even surprised by her ire, just sat there looking at her passively. 

Raelle let out a hollow, disbelieving laugh, “Wow, you’re a real fucking prick, you know that Porter?”

Porter chuckled, “You can call me whatever names you want, Raelle. But she’s bad for you. I know you think she’s some amazing, infallible siren. But remember what happened when people got too close to those fuckers,” he tilted his beer to her in a toast before taking a long swig.

Raelle stared, incredulous. 

He very nearly slammed his beer down on the counter, turning once again to Raelle. 

“You don’t believe me, and I know you don’t. I really would have preferred to talk to you about this in my hotel, because I wouldn’t have believed my girlfriend’s ex showing up and telling me this kind of shit. But I could have showed you. I could have showed you, that you…you have no fucking idea what you’re dealing with, Raelle. Who you’re dealing with. And to some extent, I think you already know that,” Porter gave her a once-over that made her skin crawl, “But love makes us all stupid. If you have an ounce of smarts left in you, you’ll leave her,”

Raelle clenched her jaw and her fist, suddenly realizing just how tense she was. How tense this entire conversation had made her. One more stupid word out of Porter’s mouth, and she had no doubt she’d fucking deck him. Scylla wasn’t perfect, no, but she wasn’t some kind of fucking monster. 

In an effort to calm herself down, Raelle pointedly looked away, working her jaw. 

“Yeah, well. People are allowed to fucking change, Porter,” she said finally, icily, as though she believed his stupid lie.

Porter snorted, pulling his hands away from his drink and started to unbutton and roll up one of his sleeves. “The shit she said? And all the shit she did?” he held out his now bare arm for Raelle to see, tapping several gnarled and rounded scars. Burns, definitely from cigarettes. She’d seen burns like that on more than one POW. 

Raelle must have looked surprised despite herself, because Porter laughed, “You should have seen the shit she did when she was angry,”

Raelle felt her stomach drop at Porter’s implication. He…did he mean to say that _Scylla_ had done that to him?!

The thought sent a wave of nausea and anger so strong through her that she swayed where she stood, and glared at Porter, absolutely livid. 

She’d…Raelle had seen Scylla angry before. Truly angry. Hers was a quiet, terrifying and cold rage. The pits of hell, bathed in blue fire. Colder than ice. But even then…Raelle could never, ever see Scylla doing something like that. Something so…horrible. Something so abusive. 

The thought made her stomach churn. There was no fucking way, and the realization made her entire body burn hot with anger. He was just trying to mess with her: to get her to doubt Scylla. He was trying to come between them – that had to be why he was staying in town, because there was no other fucking reason to do so – and the realization had her baring her teeth as Porter rolled down his sleeve and muttered, “You don’t just bury shit like that,”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Porter,” Raelle said, her voice dangerously low, “And you’re fucking drunk. Back off,”

To that, Porter laughed. “You’re the one who doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” He shook his head at her then, picking up his beer and throwing his head back, gulping it down in one go, and this time, actually slamming it on the bar. “You have no idea who she is or what she’s capable of, and I’m just trying to fucking warn you before she drags you down with her, or leaves you high and dry like she did to me.”

“I don’t want your fucking advice, Porter,” Raelle said coldly. “She’s my girlfriend, and whatever bullshit you’re trying to pull won’t fucking work. So how about you just get out of my face, and we can pretend this never happened, okay?” Raelle locked her jaw, drawing herself up to her full height. She knew she wasn’t very tall: certainly not as tall as Porter, and while she kept herself in shape, in a physical fight, Porter would be the stronger of them. 

But Raelle did know how to fight, and she wasn’t afraid to sucker punch him if he didn’t back down.

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. He looked at Raelle almost with…pity, before he sighed to himself, resigned.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, with a shake of his head, before standing. He stood in her space for a moment too long, just…staring.

“Have a good night, Raelle,” he said finally, sounding like he did not mean it at all. “When you realize I’m right, you know where to find me.” With that, he grabbed his jacket from the back of his seat, positioned it on his shoulder and left, a little unsteady on his feet.

Raelle glared at her drink, unable to shake the small, lingering effects of his words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, that scene where Raelle spots Scylla in the park gave me far more trouble than it had any right to? But I'm satisfied with it. :) 
> 
> Also...Porter starting to show his hand a little, and poor Raelle taking the bait. This can't go well...
> 
> The angst has only just begun! As always, I hope you enjoyed, if you've got a moment to spare, a comment or kudos is much appreciated! This is perhaps my favorite fic I've written so I like to see some of you enjoying it with me. :) 
> 
> Anyway, that's it for now! See y'all next week!


	4. A Necessity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slaps the roof of this chapter* This baby's over 7000 words so I hope y'all like it. I usually try to peruse these chapters on here before I post them 'cause I find the change in platform/formatting between Word and AO3 helps my eyes see typos better but I won't lie to you guys, I've read this chapter so much that I've gone cross-eyed, so, apologies for any typos but my 7 millionth round of editing just ain't happening today lmao.
> 
> Also...I'm sorry...

The confrontation ruined the entire mood for the evening. Tally and Abigail showed up to find Raelle on her second whiskey on the rocks, sour look still on her face from when Porter had left. 

She hated him. She hated him for so many reasons. 

She hated that he had said all of that. She hated that he knew, very well, that Scylla hadn’t told her anything about her past. She hated that he seemed to be able to read Raelle like a fucking book, despite never having met her before. She hated that he had that ability to get under her skin, making it itch. She hated how sure he was of everything he said. 

She hated that he showed her those scars. That he had tried to tell her that _Scylla_ had done that to him, and by extension, was trying to make her doubt her relationship: doubt her love for Scylla.

And more than anything…she hated that it worked. She hated that it was so transparent: that he was obviously trying to come between them. That he was telling her this to make her see Scylla in a bad light. To dissolve their relationship with little doubts, small cracks that over time would erode their entire foundation. 

She hated that that wasn’t even the worst of it. She hated that…that those cracks already existed. That Scylla had tried to fill them with sand, little white lies. Raelle hated that, because of those cracks, she was entertaining Porter’s stupid ideas. The poisonous thoughts he’d planted in her brain, slowly working through all of her memories of Scylla’s deflections. Of her half-truths that Raelle knew were half-truths but had just…let slide, because Scylla made her so unbelievably happy.

And if Scylla had done the same to Porter? If she had lied to him, made him so happy that he fell entirely too in love with her, willing to forgive her transgressions, her shortcomings, her omissions in her personality? And if Scylla…had done worse, to Porter? If she _had_ given him those burns…?

Raelle forced the thought out of her mind with a shake of her head. No. Scylla wouldn’t do that. 

At least…not her Scylla. She could never see Scylla doing something like that to her. 

Not to Raelle, no. But…the look of contempt, of thinly-veiled rage that Scylla had worn when Porter showed up on their doorstep…

The way she looked at him, like she would like nothing more than for him to disappear. The way she’d looked at him…cold. Worse than cold: downright heartless. That person, Raelle could see doing something…drastic, like those burns.

Raelle didn’t know that person, and Porter was right about that, and she hated that he was right.

Even after he’d kept his word and left them alone, the way Scylla was acting with just knowing he was around: distant. Disconnected.

Distracted.

Raelle didn’t know that person – that version of Scylla, if indeed it was a different version of her – and Porter was right about that, and she hated that he was right. 

There was just so much about Scylla she simply…didn’t know. And she hated that he knew that. 

Her unit asked her what was wrong, and she told them she’d run into Porter, which had turned into a bash-session that Raelle knew they were only doing for her own benefit, and that she couldn’t even fully participate in, because…

Because Porter had a goddamn point, and she loathed that most of all.

In the end, they cut their night short, Raelle reminding her unit of her two-drink limit and feigning a headache, and her unit letting her get away with those excuses. 

\---

The unseasonably cold air of the early night did nothing to ease her mood. She held her arms crossed steadfastly against the wind as it blew while she walked home, a storm in her mind and in her heart, which hammered loudly in her chest, and she could feel the pulse in her head. Her blood pressure was elevated and she was clenching her jaw, and none of that changed as she walked into her apartment. 

“You’re home early!” Scylla called, and Raelle found she couldn’t answer, pulling off her shoes and shedding her jacket and still clenching her jaw. 

Scylla popped into the hallway from the kitchen, traipsing down the hall in bare feet, a large smile on her face as she approached Raelle for a kiss.

Raelle didn’t mean to do it. She honestly didn’t. But it was automatic, her body following the tumult in her mind, and she turned, Scylla’s lips grazing her cheek. 

Raelle felt her stomach drop from Scylla’s confused look, which she gave Raelle as soon as she pulled away. A frown and furrowed brow, and Scylla immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”

Raelle sighed. Where did she even begin?

“Ran into Porter at the bar,” Raelle finally settled on, saying it flatly. She didn’t know why it had come out…accusatory. But it kind of had, and Scylla’s expression dropped immediately. 

“Oh,” Scylla said quietly.

Oh. 

And nothing else. As though that wasn’t actually much of a surprise. As though she knew he was still around, and just hadn’t known that Raelle hadn’t known.

“Yeah,” Raelle bit out, pushing past Scylla to head down the hallway. 

She…she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she really shouldn’t be upset with Scylla. That this anger was at Porter, but…well. It wasn’t like Scylla was entirely innocent, in everything that was happening. It wasn’t like Scylla was helping, leaving Raelle to drown in questions that she knew Scylla wouldn’t be willing to answer, and so no, Raelle couldn’t just fault Porter. She couldn’t just be mad at him when part of the problem…was Scylla.

A large part of the problem, actually.

“Rae-” Scylla called after her, but Raelle ignored her, heading to their room.

She was stopped by Scylla grabbing her arm, and Raelle had half a mind to pull out of her grasp, but instead allowed herself to be stopped. She looked down at Scylla’s hand on her arm and then into Scylla’s hurt, confused gaze. 

“Raelle. What’s wrong?” she asked, serious. 

Raelle scoffed. What was wrong? What wasn’t wrong, really? Where did she start? 

“You…he’s a real piece of fucking work, you know that?” she settled on, annoyed. 

Scylla’s gaze hardened, “What did he say to you?” 

“Oh, just a whole bunch of bullshit. If he wasn’t so smug about it, I would have never guessed you two dated. He’s such a fucking dick, Scylla,”

“Raelle. Raelle,” Scylla grabbed Raelle’s hands, pulling them and holding up in the space between their bodies. “Raelle,” she whispered, kissing Raelle’s fingers to calm her down. Raelle hated that it worked: she was upset with Scylla too, damn it, not just Porter. She hated that she could feel her resolve wavering, the tenderness having its intended effects, soothing some of the burning emotion in her chest. 

“Tell me what happened?” Scylla asked, pleading, her voice quiet, almost desperate. 

God, her eyes were wide. Open. Beautiful. 

Raelle sucked in a shaky breath despite herself. Right. This was Scylla. The Scylla she knew and loved: the woman who knew how to calm her down. Who knew how to help control her sometimes impulsive nature. Who looked at her with so much concern, born from love. This was the Scylla she had fallen for. The other Scylla…if there even was an “other” Scylla…was likely a figment of Porter’s imagination. Exaggerated to make Raelle doubt _her_ Scylla. And it had almost fucking worked, too. 

_She buries deep inside of you, like a maggot._ Porter’s words rang in her skull as she looked into those gorgeous blue eyes, and she shook her head. She couldn’t let Porter get to her like that. 

Raelle sighed. “Nothing. He just said I didn’t really know you. But like. He was a dick about it,”

Something flashed in Scylla’s expression, but as soon as it was there, it was gone, and she released Raelle’s hands, reaching forward and cupping her face. “And you believed him?” she asked, nearly a whisper. It wasn’t accusatory. Just a genuine question, concern dancing in her eyes.

Raelle shook her head as best she could. “No. I just…he’s not wrong though, is he?” she asked, and Scylla raised her eyebrows, “He knew you back when you were…well, I don’t know who you were. You never talk about it,”

Scylla released Raelle’s face, running a hand through her hair. “Raelle-”

Raelle huffed, already knowing where this was going. How it always went. With her being shut out. 

Raelle pulled away sharply, stepping back, her annoyance – temporarily forgotten – roaring back to life. “No, Scylla. You don’t get to just dodge this. I don’t need to know everything about your past, but you’re my fucking girlfriend. If there’s…if there’s something I should know, I’d rather hear it from you, than from him! I deserve that, as your partner. That’s literally the bare minimum!” she hadn’t meant to start almost shouting, but she was. 

Scylla held up her hands, “Raelle!” she said stepping forward. Raelle folded her arms, so Scylla stopped her advance, sighing. “There’s nothing for you to know-”

A lie. Raelle felt her stomach drop, suddenly feeling sick. Before she could even think to say anything, Scylla was continuing, “-Porter’s obviously trying to fuck with you. I don’t know what he said to you, but you know me better than anyone! You know the real me. The version me that Porter knew – that Porter _thought_ he knew – was…reckless, and stupid, and he thinks that I’m still that same person. And I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time. I promise,” she said, her words sincere, and Raelle resented the hope that rose in her chest as she took Scylla in. 

That…wasn’t a lie. 

So what was the truth, then? Raelle rubbed her temples, shutting her eyes tightly. 

“Raelle,” Scylla’s soothing voice cut through the chaos in her head, and she opened her eyes slowly to see Scylla looking at her, still very much concerned. “What’s wrong?” she asked again.

Raelle huffed. “Everything’s wrong, Scylla! I hate this. I hate that I run into your ex in a bar and he says a few bad things about you and I’m so shaken by it that I actually start to believe him, even if, deep down, I know he’s talking bullshit. But there’s something between you two, and you haven’t talked to me about it at all, and I’m out here alone watching you get caught up in yourself and not knowing _anything_ , and it gets to me,” Raelle said honestly.

Scylla’s reaction was immediate and vehement. “There’s nothing to know because there’s _nothing_ between us, Raelle. How many times do I have to tell you: Porter was nothing. He meant and he means nothing to me. He was someone to pass the time with, to fill up that void of space where I didn’t know what to do with myself. He was a fellow foster kid and we were together because it was convenient and we understood each other’s pain. That’s it. I never loved him. I put him behind me as soon as I left him,”

Raelle shook her head, frustrated, “It’s not something good, but there’s still _something_ , Scylla. I’m not fucking blind, you know? The tension, when he came in here. I could have cut it with a knife. That’s not ‘nothing’,” Raelle said forcefully, folding her arms and looking Scylla up and down. “I know you don’t like having him around. I’ve never seen you so upset as the other day when he showed up, and even how you react now, when you’re clearly thinking about him. You’re being distant, and I don’t know how you expect me to feel when my girlfriend of three years starts acting weird when her ex is suddenly in town and she won’t fucking talk to me about it!” Raelle took a deep breath, trying to calm her rising voice again, “There’s still something there, and above all else I just hate that you won’t tell me what it is,”

“How would I know, Raelle?” Scylla said, her voice frustrated but sounding like she was trying to keep it reined in, some sympathy layered on top. “I haven’t spoken to him since I left him. And I didn’t even tell him I was leaving,” Scylla said honestly. 

“See!” Raelle sighed, running a frustrated hand through her hair. “I didn’t even know that, Scylla! I don’t even know how the break-up went, what happened, why it happened: I don’t know a goddamned thing. I feel like I’m lucky I even know that you have an ex named Porter at all!”

Scylla stared, suddenly quiet, her expression conflicted. “I…didn’t tell you what happened?” she whispered.

“No, Scylla!”

Scylla sighed, looking away and folding her arms. “I…I left him…in the dead of night. I didn’t…we didn’t have any closure, but I just knew that I couldn’t stay. It wasn’t…it wasn’t a good relationship. For either of us. Porter was just more loath to admit it than I was. So…I took matters into my own hands. Packed my stuff. And left. Hitch-hiked across the country,” Scylla shrugged, looking back to Raelle. “I guess maybe he’s still upset over it?”

Raelle eyed Scylla, her gut churning, unsure if she should believe the story. She’d heard about Scylla hitch-hiking across the country to Virginia. She hadn’t realized it had been right after just…abandoning her ex. 

Raelle let out a breath, “Well…that at least explains why he seems to still have a thing for you. No closure, maybe always wondering what could have been. Maybe still wants something with you,” Raelle shrugged. “He said all this shit about how I didn’t really know you. Said you burned him, all kinds of horrible shit.”

“I mean, I left him without even saying goodbye, so,” Scylla said, wincing. 

That…hadn’t been what Raelle had meant, the image of Porter’s healed, burned flesh flashing before her eyes. She decided not to elaborate, though. 

“But…but that doesn’t matter, Raelle. Hey,” Scylla stepped right up to Raelle again, gently cupping Raelle’s face once more. “Hey. Even if he does still have a thing for me, even after all of this time and distance, it doesn’t matter. Do you know why?”

Raelle tried not to sigh. She did know why. They’d been over this before, whenever Raelle had decided she’d had enough of Scylla’s evasiveness and tried to pry just a little too much, or when Raelle was jealous or feeling particularly possessive, for one reason or another. Even before Porter’s sudden appearance…this wasn’t their first time having such a fight.

Though the new circumstances were certainly…unique… 

“Because I’m with you.” Scylla murmured, “Because I want to be with you. Because I have been with you, for three years now, and hopefully, for many more to come. Because I actually, you know. Love you. You’re my everything, Raelle,”

Despite herself, the soft words soothed her rioting emotions, and Raelle let out a breath through her nose. 

Scylla reached out and cupped Raelle’s face again. She started gently stroking Raelle’s cheeks with her thumbs, and Raelle let her, reveling in the soft touch of her girlfriend. She let the rhythmic movement soothe her, until she finally felt calm enough to open her eyes and look into Scylla’s adoring gaze.

“Okay?” Scylla asked, quiet.

And goddamn it. Those eyes…blue and bright and calling to her, a siren’s song: dangerous and beautiful. 

It wasn’t okay. She’d been given very little in their discussion. No doubts had been assuaged, nothing had been fixed. Random, little details didn’t patch the cracks: just more sand.

And yet…despite that…Raelle felt her shoulders slump. She felt all of her nervous and righteously annoyed energy leave her, the warmth in Scylla’s eyes pulling her in.

With a sigh, Raelle leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. 

“Okay,” she agreed.

\---

Scylla saw red. As soon as Raelle said Porter’s name – said that he was a real piece of work – Scylla saw red. She would fucking kill Porter, the next time she saw him. She should have done it years ago…

She’d forced the rage – always ever-present despite years of working through it – aside, in favor of damage control. She hated seeing Raelle so upset. So thoroughly shaken. She didn’t like seeing the conflict in Raelle’s eyes…as though some part of her believed Porter, which Scylla knew couldn’t be true.

Right?

No, it couldn’t be. Because if Raelle truly believed him, Scylla’s calming kisses wouldn’t have worked. Her quiet reassurances would have sparked more ire, not that softening expression that she loved to see on Raelle’s face. 

Still…even after calming Raelle, Scylla quietly kissing her and grasping her hands, tugging her gently into the kitchen, where she then continued making dinner, as she had been before Raelle got home...Scylla could still sense that something was off. 

Raelle remained contemplative: stoic, though Scylla made sure to pull her from her brooding thoughts that she’d noticed, more and more, darkening Raelle’s features.

She didn’t like seeing them. Not in the slightest.

So she did what she could to distract Raelle: she got her a beer. She gave her a kiss. She sent her suggestive winks over her shoulder while she cooked and shimmied and sang, all in an effort to get Raelle to smile, and thank the goddess it worked.

By the time dinner was actually ready, Raelle had her pressed against the counter, kissing her with a desperate fervor that had Scylla knowing they were definitely going to eat cold food that evening, which they did an hour later, Raelle contentedly wolfing down the meal and Scylla watching her fondly, twirling her own spoon contemplatively on her plate.

She let her mind wander, a frown taking over her features as her thoughts returned to Porter.

What had he said to Raelle? She’d been…she’d been so upset. 

More upset than Scylla had seen her in a while. 

Scylla fought down a scowl, not wanting to ruin the happiness she had finally restored to her girlfriend and their apartment. She didn’t want Raelle to see her sudden mood change, and she certainly didn’t want her asking what was wrong. Not after Scylla had worked so hard to talk Raelle down and then wind her up. Not after they’d just had fantastic and much-needed sex and were now satiating their other appetites. She didn’t want to ruin the goodwill she had built, and she certainly didn’t want to poison Raelle’s high spirits. 

But the dark cloud that was Porter – Porter, still in town, doing nothing but spooking her girlfriend – Scylla couldn’t let that stand. 

Despite herself, she scowled, turning away so that Raelle wouldn’t see, pretending to contemplate the pile of dishes left over from dinner. 

She couldn’t let Porter think he was just…welcome to stay. She couldn’t let him feel comfortable. She couldn’t even imagine why the fuck he was still in town. He’d told them he would be there for a little while, but…a week? More than? He hadn’t specified, and Scylla didn’t like that. She didn’t like that his presence had been slowly but surely coming between them, until that spat they’d just had. She didn’t like that he was playing with fire, and knew it, and somehow didn’t seem to think he’d get burned.

No, that was too much. He could only tempt the fates for so long…

Scylla saw red again, but forced down any outward reaction, twisting her features into neutrality so that she could look back to Raelle, who still seemed entirely too distracted by her food. Bless her post-coital munchies. The sight made Scylla smile, entirely too thrilled that she could still make Raelle work up such an appetite even after a few years together.

And hopefully…many more.

Scylla furrowed her brow as her own words echoed within her mind. 

And hopefully…many more years together. 

She couldn’t let him ruin this. Ruin her and Raelle. Ruin…them.

It was time Scylla paid Porter a visit…

\---

Porter was at the bar at his hotel the next day, and part of Scylla couldn’t help but feel like that was…fitting. It certainly made her job a lot easier than having to just sit there at the bar and wait for him to come down, or head up to his room. 

She let her scowl show as she headed over to Porter, the sole person at the bar besides the bartender, who was on the other end, cleaning glasses and pretending not to notice as Scylla approached. 

Just as well. She didn’t want a drink, anyway. 

“Starting early,” she said, and he turned from his beer to look at her, shock registering on his features. 

“Scy-” he started, but she cut him off, coming right up to him at the bar. 

“Shut up, Porter,” Scylla cut him off, and he listened, and some twisted part of her that she long thought buried writhed in pleasure at the sight of it. 

God, their relationship really had not been the least bit healthy, at all. 

Porter seemed to snap out of his automatic obedience, realizing that he had listened without question. Like before. Like no time had passed between them at all. 

He let out a snort and shook his head, turning his attention from Scylla back to his bottle, swirling the beer within. “Wow,” he said, chuckling to himself. “You haven’t changed at fucking all, huh?”

“Why the fuck are you here, Porter?”

“I’m staying here, Scylla,” he said, mocking, indicating the hotel around them.

Scylla clenched her jaw, feeling her fingers twitch. She could see in Porter’s side-long glance too – he knew he’d fucked up. 

But no. She wasn’t…she wasn’t that Scylla. She wasn’t the Scylla that he knew. The Scylla he knew would have put him in his place immediately. Maybe grabbed or twisted his ear. Knocked his beer over. Or something worse, if they were alone. 

There was hesitation in Porter’s gaze, but Scylla refrained from making any movement, and a moment later, assured she wasn’t going to punish him, Porter relaxed slightly. 

“Why are _you_ here?” he asked, sounding defeated.

“I need to talk to you,”

Porter laughed again, “Oh, _now_ you need to talk to me? Made Raelle do most of the talking before, so I guess that makes sense,”

Scylla stepped dangerously close, right into Porter’s space, and he glanced at her, fear flashing in his eyes for only a moment before he found his backbone and straightened, effectively making himself taller than Scylla, despite being sat on a barstool. 

“You leave Raelle alone,” she hissed, low. 

Porter’s nostrils flared, despite Scylla’s glare. “No,” he said, the word heavy in his mouth. “No, I don’t think I will. How about you leave her alone? Doesn’t she deserve better than you, Scylla?”

Scylla heard the click of her teeth as she snapped her jaw shut at those words, shocked. She pulled back from Porter, taken aback by the audacity of what he’d said. 

“She doesn’t know a thing about you. The real you. She doesn’t know half the shit you’ve done, does she? Hell,” he shook his head, “I don’t even know half of the shit that you’ve done, but I sure as hell know you much better than she does. How have you done it? Hidden all that,” he leaned back and gave Scylla a once-over with glassy eyes, which had her scowling, “Anger, away?”

He took another swig of his beer, “Actually, you know what? I think I know how. I think I’ve always known how, you know that? You were never very subtle about it. Guess you got better at covering it up-”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scylla asked, voice cold. 

Porter chuckled. “You know what it means, Scylla.” he lifted his bottle and tipped it toward her. 

She glared, and he took another pull. “You haven’t changed at fucking all. You’ve got her fooled. You’ve got this whole town fooled, probably. Know something? I don’t even think you love her. I don’t see how you can,” he lifted up his arms, rotating them, showing off the burns she’d given him. 

She tried to seem unaffected at seeing them, but the sight still shot a jolt of pleasure through her nervous system. She’d done that. The earliest manifestations of her darkness, of her pain expressed on another’s body. 

“Do you even really love her, if you haven’t physically scarred her? That’s the only way you know how to demonstrate your love. Or are you still holding her in the honeymoon phase? Slowly testing the waters to see what kind of shit she’ll let you get away with? I don’t think you love her. Not like you loved me.”

“I never loved you, Porter,” Scylla said, cold. 

His wince pleased the monster within her: the side of her she’d so tightly caged. Porter had brought it roaring back to the surface, raking its claws through the iron bars she’d caged it behind, hungry for that which had been denied all those years back, and its presence felt…right. 

She should have killed him, retrospect giving her enough comfort for the thought. A comfort that she hadn’t had, at the time.

She curled her lip.

“She deserves better than you,” Porter said, his voice feeble for only a moment before he stiffened. “And you know it. You’re a monster. An abuser. Full of rage I doubt she knows how to handle. But I do,” he tilted his head, “You and I…we’re different from her. From…normal people. Cut from darker cloths. She’ll never understand you like I understood you. And I think that…some part of you knows that. Otherwise, you would have told her-”

Scylla stiffened. He was right, to an extent…she and Porter were far more similar than she and Raelle. But that was…that was the point. That Raelle was so…different. Special. And that was precisely why Scylla couldn’t tell her: precisely why there was no way in hell that she could even think about doing that. Fuck, she’d never even told Porter. It was just one of those things that simply…could not be told. 

And here Porter was, talking like he knew anyway…

“-but you haven’t. Instead you’ve pushed down everything that you are, to try to appease her. To try and make yourself worthy of her. You’re parading around, pretending that you’ve changed,” he snorted, then, “But you haven’t. You haven’t fucking changed at all, have you? Just gotten better at it-”

“What are you talking about, Porter?” Scylla asked, narrowing her eyes. 

“You don’t love her, Scylla,” he rambled, and she realized then just how drunk he actually was. From the rambling to the posture to his sheer audacity and the vague semblance of a backbone that he’d seemed to have grown, it suddenly became obvious. She didn’t know how many beers he’d had, but clearly…this wasn’t his first. Nor his second. 

He continued, “You don’t know how to love, just to possess. To control. To just…fucking eat at someone’s soul until there’s nothing left,”

“Did you tell Raelle that?” Scylla accused, and he snorted. 

“I told Raelle the truth: that she doesn’t know you. Tried to tell her more but she wasn’t too keen to talk to me,” he shrugged, “Take it she wasn’t happy with you last night, huh?” he looked at her out of the corner of his eye while he brought the bottle to his lips and knocked it back. 

Scylla glared, getting further into his space, stepping just a little bit closer, and Porter at least had the good sense to look surprised and a little afraid. 

Good. He needed to remember his place, and having her so close clearly was reminding him. She could do anything to him, and he knew that, because she had done anything she wanted, when they were together. 

She eyed him coldly, letting him stew in his fear, watching the alarm rise in his expression as she didn’t move a muscle. 

Finally, she spoke, her tone low. Dangerous. “You’re drunk, Porter. It’s barely past noon, and you’re already drunk. So you’re talking nonsense,”

Porter let out a huff that may have been a scoff, if he wasn’t such a goddamn coward. 

Scylla actually didn’t know if he was truly drunk or just buzzed. He clearly had a few before she’d arrived, but she didn’t know how much and at any rate, it didn’t necessarily matter. Alcohol was giving him the balls to talk back, and she was giving him an excuse for his behavior. For his reckless words. She was giving him an out. And if he was anywhere near smart enough, or sober enough, to hear the growing threats in her words…he would heed her next ones.

“So, I’ll tell you what. How about you sober up, you pack up your bags, and you leave. You have no reason to be here, except to antagonize me and Raelle, and frankly, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you. You’ve already been to your buddy’s funeral. If there even was a ‘buddy’s funeral’,” she sneered, “Your time here is up. I don’t care where the fuck you go. I don’t care what the fuck you do. But you will leave,”

“And if I refuse?” he asked, setting his jaw. 

Scylla tilted her head, then, taking Porter in, sat before her, trying to put on a brave face as though she didn’t have years of experience reading his fear. “Fuck around and find out, I suppose. But I swear, Porter, if you ever, ever, talk to Raelle again-” she said, her voice low, but Porter’s laugh interrupted her. 

It was derisive, hollow. “You’ll what? Do with me what you’ve done with all those other people who’ve ‘disappeared’?”

Scylla felt all of her words die in her throat, blood turning cold in an instant, eyes going wide and her mouth dropping open. 

Porter smiled at her, a sad, twisted smile. “Oh, yeah. Didn’t think I’d put those dots together, huh? Please, Scylla. The shit you did…the person you ‘used’ to be. You don’t get ‘better’ from that. You don’t come back from that. You get better at hiding it. You’ve got it down to a science now, haven’t you? You’re not as sloppy as you used to be. But once you started, you never stopped, huh? It’s how I managed to find you, and everywhere you’ve been since you left me. Just had to follow the trail of blood. Wasn’t hard to find, once I knew what to look for.”

Scylla stared, shocked despite herself. He…he knew? 

No…no, that couldn’t be. She’d…she’d only given into the worst of her impulses two weeks before she left him. And she hadn’t seen him since. He couldn’t have known…he was drunk. Trying to get a rise out of her. After all…if he knew, why hadn’t he turned her in? If he knew…why hadn’t he run? Why hadn’t he left? Why hold it over her head now? 

And why tell her, if he truly knew? Surely, even he wasn’t that fucking stupid…

Porter continued, “Fuck, Scylla. You came home with blood on your hands more times than I dared to count. I thought it was just fights, you know? But it wasn’t, was it?” he shook his head, letting out a hollow laugh, “I kind of always just told myself that you wouldn’t go that far, but you did, didn’t you? Who was the first?”

Scylla locked her jaw as Porter put on a pensive expression, stroking his chin and looking at the ceiling as though he was genuinely contemplating, but even she could see…he already knew. 

“Maybe…that guy they found on the rocks at the beach, not a twenty minute walk from our house? Maybe that was the first one. Seemed like something you would do. Sliced up to all hell. Stabbed twenty-four times. Bashed skull. The works.” he narrowed his eyes, “You had fun with that one, huh?”

Bile rose in her throat.

He was bluffing. He had to be. Surely…

At any rate, her stony, shocked silence wasn’t helping her case, so she said, through clenched teeth. “Wow, so now drinking makes you stupid and delusional, huh?” It was…an attempt, but a poor one, and she knew from Porter’s hollow laugh that the gaslighting hadn’t worked at all.

“You wanna talk about delusional?” he hissed, raising an eyebrow, “How about Raelle, huh? Doesn’t know she’s in bed with a fucking killer, does she? Total fucking dumbass doesn’t see your true colors. You’re just stringing her along-”

Scylla saw red, but the last straw was the next words out of his mouth.

“You’re lucky I didn’t tell her yesterday, when I saw her. I almost did it, too, you know? Just to end her misery before you do it for her,”

He almost told Raelle.

The thought sent a cold panic creeping down her back, like ice water trickling down her spine.

He almost. Told. Raelle.

Her heart stuttered in her chest as all that implied rippled through her. All the damage that could do, the devastation it could cause –

But…but Raelle…Raelle wouldn’t believe him.

Would she? It wasn’t like he had any evidence, and Raelle already seemed to think he was just trying to wind her up, so no, she wouldn’t have, and Scylla would have believed that except…

Except…for last night. Except for the look in Raelle’s eyes, like Scylla had already betrayed her. Like Scylla had lied to her – something that Scylla strived very hard to not do, when it could be helped. Like Raelle really had believed what Porter had said, even if just for a moment. But that…a moment, like that…it was dangerous. It was enough to have cast doubt on their _three year relationship_. 

Porter had driven a wedge between them, and Scylla hated it. Scylla hated that Porter had somehow just…waltzed right back into her life and had managed to revive the part of her she’d long thought she had under control, and how just his very presence had created such turmoil in such a short amount of time. 

And what…what did he really know? Did he have any evidence? Did he actually know, or was he just talking out of his ass to get a rise out of her? To egg her on? To make her react: to prove his point?

Honestly…she’d always suspected that Porter may have known. She’d made no secret of her anger. Her hatred and violence. She had been physically and emotionally abusive to him. She had been bailed out more than once by him after being brought to a holding cell for getting into fights. Porter knew that Scylla was violent. Some part of him, she’d always known, had to know that she was fully capable of murder. Whether he’d ever wanted to admit it to himself was another thing, but apparently…get a few drinks in him and all of a sudden, he could see everything clearly, and that wasn’t good. 

It wasn’t good at all. 

In fact…it was exactly what she’d feared, when he’d showed up at her doorstep. At their doorstep. She’d already thought that Porter’s presence was bad enough, because he knew Scylla as she had been. He knew Scylla as a hellion, abusive and bent on chaos and destruction, self or otherwise. And that was already bad enough: if he told Raelle about that side of her. But she hadn’t known if he knew more than that: she hadn’t known just how much of a threat he could be.

And now? Oh, now she did…

And he’d just threatened to do the very thing that she feared most he would, ever since he’d waltzed in through her front door. 

And in that moment of realization – of cold dread running down her back – she made her decision. 

She straightened.

Porter slammed down the bottle, standing, nearly knocking into Scylla. “Maybe I’ll just go tell her now, actually,” he said, defiant. 

She slapped him. He seemed absolutely shocked that she did, staring at her, open-mouthed. 

She surged forward, grabbing him roughly at the collar and pulling him into a searing kiss. 

Just like old times. A fight, heated emotions. Some violence to get her wet and wanting. Her hunger and domineering control served to get him hard, and just like that, he would forget what a fucking monster she really was. He was so easy to control. Always had been.

She felt him respond to the kiss. She purposefully dug her nails into his chest, loathing that he tried to put his tongue in her mouth. 

She was going to have to use a fuck of a lot of mouth wash to get the taste of him out of her mouth, but the fact that he was responding was good. 

With a bit of extra roughness, she pushed him away, but not far enough that she was out of his personal space, making sure to keep her fists bunched up in the fabric of his shirt. 

She kept her eyes shut, biting her lip and knowing full well that when she opened them, Porter would be staring at her, dazed and confused and a little turned on, because that was the whole point. This had been their foreplay for so long. So many years. 

Scylla let out a purposefully measured breath, fighting down a sneer. She had a part to play, and she needed to be convincing, because this…this couldn’t go sideways.

There was too much on the line…

She opened her eyes, purposefully playing with her breathing, letting it hitch. She swallowed, loosening her tight grip on his shirt. 

All deliberate. As though she was realizing…all that she’d been missing…all this time without Porter…

She looked up at him, then, making sure to keep her eyes as surprised, but pleading, as possible. Like she just hadn’t been able to control herself. Like some part of their old dynamic was there. As though she would take him up to his room and torture him in any way he would let her until she would have her wicked way with him, and he would beg her to hurt him: a total goner for the devil in Scylla’s skin. 

For a minute, she felt it, too: the temptation. Not for the sex…but for the violence. Oh, he had let her do almost anything she wanted. Burn him with wax, handcuff him, tie him up. Cigarettes. Knives. Whatever got her going, he would allow it, because he was that fucking worthless, and he knew it. The thought ignited that old itch within her, and she shivered despite herself. 

She saw the effect it had on Porter: it was immediate. He looked at her as though she’d suddenly cleared everything up for him. As though he suddenly realized something, and that something was that Scylla still wanted him. 

It was why he was sticking around town, of that she had little doubt. There was no other reason for him to try to track her down. To stay in town. To have even showed up in the first place. Maybe he had come for some other reason: closure or revenge for her leaving him, but god, he was so obvious about his want for her. About how much he still held out hope that she would want him. About how much he was willing to get Raelle out of the picture, so that they could be together. 

And he would say anything, if he thought it would get her attention. If he thought it meant he had a shot…

She could work with that…

“Porter,” she whispered, purposefully putting a rasp in her voice, as though that disgusting kiss had actually turned her on. 

She let go of him then, turning away, as though ashamed. “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Porter said, reaching out, “I’m sorry I said that, about Raelle. I just…fuck, Scylla. She doesn’t know you. And if she doesn’t know you…how can she love you?” he gently reached out, cupping one of her cheeks with his hand that was too big, and that she loathed to feel touch her once again. “How can she love you like I did? And, just…fuck. Do you have any idea what it’s like, to wake up to an empty bed? To realize your girlfriend…the love of your life, has just left, without saying anything? I thought I could move beyond that. And then I saw you with her, and I just…”

Goddess, she didn’t fucking care. She fought down a scowl, looking at Porter as he pursed his lips, his glassy gaze conflicted. 

What a fucking idiot. 

“I just…I’m sorry, for what I said. I just wanted to get a rise out of you. Because I know you. I know you can’t change. Neither can I, and I tried, you know? I joined the fucking Air Force,” he widened his arms and gave her a sheepish smile. Trying to connect with her. “Me, the Air Force! Thought maybe it’d straighten me out. And it didn’t do shit. Got discharged last year just a peg above dishonorable. So I know that…whatever you did, to seem like you changed. It didn’t do shit either. And you and I…we’re similar. We’ve seen so much shit. People don’t understand us. Only we understand us,” he said it almost desperately, as though trying to get her to comprehend the truth in his words, and Scylla feigned that she was thinking about it, turning away.

“Porter…I can’t. I can’t – I’m with Raelle. I can’t do this with you-” she glanced at him, and he stood there, arms still open, looking at her with quiet, desperate hope. 

“She doesn’t know you like I do, Scylla. She doesn’t accept you like I do. You know that I know how you are. Who you are. You don’t have to pretend with me. You can let it out. All that you’re holding back for her. You can let it out with me,”

Scylla pursed her lips as though truly thinking it over. As though she would ever actually go back to Porter, after years of not seeing him. After years of putting him behind her, forgetting about him. After coming so close to ending his life…

As if she would ever go back to Porter, when she had Raelle.

But the thought of him…of Porter making good on his promise to tell Raelle – hell, Porter talking to Raelle at all about her – no matter how unlikely it was, was simply too much. Raelle…Raelle absolutely could not find out. Raelle…deserved the world. Raelle deserved the Scylla she knew and loved: the woman who had been working to improve herself since that night she’d come within an inch of cutting her boyfriend’s throat. She’d come a long way, and did she not deserve a little happiness, too? Her life had been nothing but fucking pain: having it inflicted on her and inflicting it on others. Misery loved company, after all. 

So, no. Even though she’d decided…even though she’d decided she was done.

She had one more thing to take care of…

She eyed Porter, as though truly torn. As though considering his absolutely ludicrous offer. 

She shook her head, “I…I can’t-”

“Hey,” he said, quietly, stepping forward, “You can. Okay? We don’t…we don’t have to say anything to Raelle. Not now, anyway. We can just…talk. Figure this out,”

Scylla raised her eyebrow at him, “Talk?” she asked, making sure to inject a hint of disappointment into her tone, which had Porter swallowing. 

“Whatever you want,” he said, and Scylla had to fight down a smile she could feel threatening to break free.

Too fucking easy. 

“I can’t. We can’t. At least…not here,” she looked around, as though perturbed someone may be eavesdropping. Porter glanced about as well. The only other person around was still the bartender, who was still at the other end of the bar, clearly pretending like he wasn’t trying to listen to their conversation. 

But…he was far enough away that Scylla was confident he couldn’t hear them. 

Still, she lowered her voice, “I’ll give you my number, okay? Remember: Raelle knows you’re staying here. If she knows I’m coming here…we can’t.”

“Okay,” Porter said seriously, hushed. 

“Give me your phone,” Scylla said, and Porter complied, fumbling with it as he pulled it from his pocket and handed it over after using his thumb to unlock it.

Scylla typed in a number – a burner – shooting off a text and then handing the phone back to Porter. 

“Text me when you’re packed…I’ll come pick you up tomorrow to bring you to a new place, okay? Can you check out of your hotel early? This’ll be easier if Raelle thinks you’re gone, I can get us a new hotel-”

“Um, I’m not sure, but I don’t see why not, I’ll have them reduce it now,”

“Okay,” Scylla said, nodding. She took Porter in where he stood before her, entirely enthralled and god, no wonder she’d been with him for so long. One kiss and he was all hers. Some callbacks to their old days and his nostalgia had him drowning. 

Fucking idiot. The thought had her smiling, and she had no doubt it was a slightly cruel smile, but it was met with a hopeful one from Porter. That was the Scylla he knew. Mean. Angry.

His. 

She pulled him in by his shirt again, leaving him with another searing kiss before pulling away, “Keep an eye on your phone, let me know when you’ve checked out,” she tugged on the shirt, snarling only just, because she knew that he liked it when she did that. When she showed him her darkness. 

“O-okay,” he stuttered, and Scylla allowed her meanness to drop in favor of a tender look, and Porter smiled at her.

Actually fucking smiled. 

Too easy.

“Now go pack. I have to get back to work,”

And he fucking listened. Turned and sent her one last, disbelieving but elated glance, before making a beeline for the elevators. 

Scylla watched him go, keeping her expression the same: neutral but with a hint of excitement, until he’d disappeared from view.

As soon as he was gone, she rolled her eyes. 

Okay. One more. One more, to satiate the itch she could feel, ever-present, in the back of her consciousness. But! Only because she needed to. He was a threat. As long as he lived, he carried Scylla’s history with him. As long as he lived, he was a witness to her darkness, and all she was capable of. All she had done. And as long as he lived, he could destroy her whole world. 

She couldn’t allow that to happen. 

So, one more.

Just one more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know! But in all fairness, just like in canon, she did it for a reason so like...we forgive her? Maybe...? 
> 
> Anyway! Phew! That was a ride huh?? Hope you all enjoyed the extra-long chapter (the second-longest in the whole fic), even if Raylla had a fight. :( But Scylla made it better? Sorta...
> 
> That's it for this week, see you all next Saturday for the next one! If you enjoyed you know the drill, let me know with a comment or a kudos or both if you're feeling particularly generous! Take care of yourselves!


	5. A Burden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anddd we're back! With another chapter for your enjoyment! I'm glad to see that you guys are enjoying this fic so far with me, buckle up 'cause the tension's only gonna get higher from here! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Porter texted her before she could fully finish preparations, but it was fine. She pulled off one of her gloves and picked up her burner phone, setting aside the tools she’d been using to set up Porter’s new accommodations. It was an abandoned basement, in an old, condemned and decrepit building – one of several such spots she’d scouted around the city when she’d first arrived, years ago when she started her residency – that had been largely forgotten. It had a narrow metal door and three small, grimy windows that allowed in some filtered light: enough to illuminate the space, but not enough that someone would be able to see Porter inside. Or see inside at all, honestly. 

She’d left the house early that morning in order to ensure herself enough time for all that had to be done. With the excuse of work as her cover, she’d gotten out of bed – or well, she’d tried to – at a, quite simply, ungodly hour. Raelle had rolled over at the sound of Scylla’s alarm, wrapping her arms tightly around Scylla’s middle and sleepily asking her where she was going so early in the morning. Raelle’s tired, pleading voice nearly had Scylla caving to her groaned request of “ten more minutes” and snuggling into Scylla, refusing to let her go. 

But she’d been on a time constraint. She didn’t usually do her planning so last-minute, so it was imperative she didn’t let things – even things as gorgeous and sexy and loveable as Raelle – distract her. She was on a tight schedule: she’d had to pick up her rental car and then had to set everything up for Porter. Then she had to go to work. She’d thankfully already figured out how to leave work early, if nothing else. She’d sent Izadora a text the night before saying that she was needed at a teleconference that she’d been accepted to last-minute, which would cover her early departure. Izadora had taken it at face value despite the quick succession of changes to her schedule, because Izadora and Scylla got on like a house on fire. Anyone else, she may have checked. Asked them the name of the conference. If Izadora knew anyone presenting? If Scylla could get her an invite? But with Scylla, she just…trusted her. 

Scylla almost felt bad for taking advantage of that. Which was why she rarely ever did it. That, and it was also risky.

Sometimes, Scylla suspected that Izadora knew that she wasn’t telling her the truth. Sometimes, she suspected that Izadora just straight-up didn’t care: figured it was none of her business and left it alone. Or perhaps she knew that Scylla was up to no good, and just preferred to not get involved.

Honestly, that was part of why they got along so well. Izadora didn’t ask her questions. Didn’t seem at all fazed by how…peaceful, or even delighted, Scylla could be cutting into a dead body and piecing together all relevant information about it: learning the person’s history despite them no longer being able to speak. Unwinding all of their secrets in their entrails. In fact, Scylla would dare say that she and Izadora were almost entirely too similar: too comfortable with death, too familiar with it and isolated because of that. 

Honestly, Scylla wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it ever came out that Izadora had a literal skeleton or two in her closet. She could entirely see the woman as being capable of murder, and it brought Scylla an…odd sort of comfort. She had a kindred spirit in Izadora, and she really, genuinely appreciated the woman’s presence in her life. 

Still. It’d been hard to leave Raelle in their bed that morning, but she’d done it, knowing that the clock was ticking. She looked at the text:

_Packed, reduced nights. Check out is eleven._

Scylla glanced at the time. 8am. 

Someone was eager. 

She still needed to finishing laying out the plastic wrap, and then head into work for a few hours…

She typed out a response:

_Great. Hang out til 2:15pm, will pick you up at the corner of Granada St. and Thistle Ln._

Her phone buzzed with a message: a thumbs-up from Porter.

Scylla rolled her eyes.

Fucking idiot. 

\---

Porter followed her instructions, meeting her at the specified corner, grabbing his rucksack from the bench he was sitting on at the edge of Acorn Park when she pulled up and flashed her lights at him. He slung his rucksack over his shoulder and grinned and waved as he walked, and she tried not to let her scowl show as he approached.

He was all smiles as he opened the back door, throwing his rucksack in the backseat and slamming the door before popping open the passenger side and settling in. 

He had the audacity to lean over, as though going in for a kiss, and Scylla immediately leaned away, cutting a glare at him.

“Are you insane? Not here!” she hissed, and Porter’s expression fell, but only for a moment as she quickly added, “Anyone could see, Porter. This can’t get back to Raelle,”

He clenched his jaw, looking upset at the mention of her girlfriend’s name, but he settled back in his seat, nonplussed. Pouty, even. 

Scylla sighed. Stupid, fragile male ego. 

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, not sorry in the least, “But…I can’t let her hear about this from anyone. I can’t…” she paused, considering her words. She’d have to be careful, because…honestly, Porter held more power than he knew he did. She couldn’t say anything that would drive him out of her clutches. 

In fact…

She subtly put the car in drive, pulling away from the curb, the doors automatically locking with an innocuous and neutral sound. Much more subtle than if she’d locked the doors herself, and she nodded to herself, satisfied that Porter didn’t seem to realize. “I can’t let her hear about this until…until I know that this is what I want. And I have to be the one to tell her. I owe her that much,”

Porter huffed, “I didn’t get that much,” he said, and Scylla sighed.

“I was young, Porter. Scared. Of what I felt for you-” Violent. Murderous. And not really scared of that in the slightest, actually. 

But he didn’t have to know that. 

“You could have just talked to me, Scylla,” he said, sounding wounded, and Scylla signaled a turn, cutting the wheel.

“No I couldn’t. We were never good at talking, Porter. And if I couldn’t even…if I couldn’t even understand what I was feeling, how could I talk about it with you?” she glanced at him. 

Goddess, she was putting on the show of her life, and he was eating it up, his full attention on her as she talked, baring her soul. 

Or so he thought. 

“But you know now?” he asked, his voice quiet. 

She quickly looked at him, giving him a once-over. 

“I…think I was stupid to try to deny it,”

He nodded. “When things end the way they did between us…there’s always a lot that doesn’t get resolved. I’m…glad we get to talk about it now, though. Work through it. I think we need it.”

He was absolutely delusional. She tapped the wheel as she continued to drive, choosing not to answer. But for Porter, she knew – the silence confirmed his fabricated reality. 

\---

She drugged him at a red light. It wasn’t graceful. She’d tried to think of a number of ways to subdue him, and honestly, while she would have preferred to be more…subtle, like offering him a drink from a bottle laced with a strong cocktail that would knock him out before he would realize he was feeling woozy – her preferred method, if she was picking up bodies in bars – she ended up just having to inject him, and quickly. 

Some part of him had been expecting it, and she knew that: driving the syringe into his thigh, she thankfully had already depressed the plunger by the time his hand grabbed her forearm in a vice grip. It was the most strength he had ever displayed against her, and honestly, for a moment, Scylla was actually afraid. He was…stronger than he used to be. Military training. 

But the drug was fast-acting, and as soon as he had clasped her arm, his own loosened. His jaw went slack and his eyes looked at her, betrayed, before glassing over, his body going lax, slumping back in the seat. 

Scylla pulled the syringe out and, when the light turned green, continued on her way. 

\---

She shot a text off to Raelle using her real phone, which she’d had on her in the rental and which she would not want on her at her destination with Porter, so she’d made a pit stop. Porter looked like he was asleep to anyone who may pass by, so she felt fairly confident leaving him behind for a few moments while she walked off and sent a photo of herself in the woods that she’d taken earlier that morning, with a small blurb about unexpected fieldwork, and that she’d be home late. She immediately shut the whole thing off after, quietly depositing her phone in her car, parked as it was in the hospital lot, her parking permit sticker stuck to the window. Then she’d gone back to the rental and drove it all the way to where she needed Porter to be.

She…didn’t like lying to Raelle. It was part of what had made her decide she was done with her bad habit in the first place: knowing that she had to lie to Raelle. Anytime she had a body that she needed to take care of…it came with lies. Porter came with even more. And it was bad enough that she already lied to Raelle about her past, when she felt like she couldn’t get away from dodging the questions: she didn’t like having other things that forced her to lie even more.

She had to do it, though. And she had to do it far more than she would have preferred. But…Scylla knew Raelle. Scylla loved Raelle, and Raelle was everything that Scylla was not, but that she adored. 

Raelle was…sunshine. But not…not direct sunshine. Raelle was the silver lining on a gray cloud, a corona of light in an eclipse. She was ethereal, beyond measure and inspiring in her brilliance, subtle as that inspiration sometimes was. Raelle was a good person. She was…an impulsive, slightly pessimistic person, but there was a light within her that refused to be dimmed, and when she fully showed it – in the thousand watts of her smile, in the brightness of her eyes – Scylla fell in love all over again, and even more so than she had been before. Raelle’s presence in her life had been nothing but positive. Had brought nothing but light, and love, and passion, and a thirst for life that Scylla had long thought herself incapable of. Raelle brightened her days and warmed her nights, and Scylla could not imagine her life without Raelle in it.

The thought was absolutely devastating, making her stomach churn. 

If Raelle ever found out…

She sighed to herself.

She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t…she didn’t want to even imagine any scenario in which Raelle looked at her with anything other than love. The pain was almost unbearable, and that was just at the mere thought. The actual thing…it made her shudder. 

She wouldn’t survive it. They may as well just execute her. 

Goddess knew she deserved it, for the blood on her hands. But she’d been trying so hard to turn herself around. And she’d finally fucking done it, too. 

It’d been a year and a half since her last kill. Just shy of two years since she’d last felt the need, an itch within that just…grew in persistence until she decided to indulge it. And even then, it had felt so…hollow. Ever since she’d met Raelle…ever since she’d fallen in love with her, murder had started to feel less and less like something good. Like something to be enjoyed. All she could do, was see her vicious acts through Raelle’s eyes. All she could think about, was what Raelle would think if she saw Scylla. If she ever learned what Scylla had done. And the thought made her sick, because Raelle would leave her (really, Raelle would turn her in, but she didn’t even care: all that mattered was how Raelle would look at her), and she wouldn’t even be able to blame her for it. Raelle would have every right to do it, and Scylla would let the guilt destroy her. 

It would be what she deserved, after all. 

Raelle was the one, constant, bright spot in her life. She couldn’t lose her, no matter how justified it would be. No matter how unworthy she was of such a wonderful human. Raelle’s presence in her life had brought her a peace that she truly had never known, and the thought of losing that was absolutely bleak. 

It was why Raelle couldn’t find out. It was why Scylla’d actually, finally, consciously put an end to her bad habit. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a major one.

And Porter had fucked that all up.

Technically, she didn’t have to kill him. She wouldn’t _have_ to kill him, _if_ he hadn’t opened his stupid fucking mouth. If he had just left well enough alone. If he hadn’t gotten it into his head that, more than a decade after she’d left him, she somehow still harbored feelings for him.

He was truly delusional. Clearly, his drinking habit hadn’t gotten any better. And knowing what she knew of Raelle’s time in the Army…Scylla doubted Porter’s time in the military had done his mental health any favors. 

Clearly, it hadn’t. Clearly, he was drowning. Looking for Scylla because he knew she would punish him. She would hurt him. And Porter had always felt worthless. To the young, angry Scylla he had met, he was the perfect punching bag. To grown, calmer Scylla…he was a sad little man who still stirred that deep chaos in her very soul. 

He was right about one thing. They were cut from the same dark cloth, though only Scylla’s was bathed in blood. Or maybe not, considering his stint in the Air Force. But where Scylla had always felt oddly justified inflicting pain, Porter was the opposite. He wanted to be punished. Ridiculed. He blamed himself for all the shit he’d seen and all that had been done to him, a child of a very abusive household who never grew to realize that the way he’d been treated was never his fault. Who had grown to accept that love had to be riddled with pain and mistreatment, or it wasn’t love. To the point that he hadn’t realized, hadn’t seen, Scylla’s actions for what they truly were, and…

And it wasn’t his responsibility to know, either. Hindsight allowed her to see that. To know that they were both fucked up, but of the two of them…she had been the worst. The most unfair. Expecting something he couldn’t give and then getting frustrated, and angry, at him when he was unable to help her. Punishing him for it. And he’d accepted it, because to him…that was what love was. That was what he deserved.

It was…sad, actually. She frowned, then shook her head. 

No. She wasn’t going to feel bad for Porter. She wasn’t. 

This, at least, he’d brought on himself. There was no way to guarantee he wouldn’t tell Raelle a damn thing. Even if he said he wouldn’t…he could. He always could. As long as he was alive, he was a threat, and despite herself, Scylla scowled. 

He looked…pathetic, slumped as he was against a metal pillar, tied to it in a way that Scylla knew would be impossible to escape, his wrists bound tightly behind and to the beam. She’d gotten very good at tying knots thanks to her…hobby. There was plastic wrap all around him on the floor: enough that even if she cut his throat, the spray would not leave a drop of blood on the floor. 

She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that, though. Cutting his throat was vicious, and much as she may be loath to admit it…it wasn’t to her tastes anymore. And Porter was…he wasn’t just a random body off the street. He…they, had a past, twisted as it was, and some part of her didn’t want to just…kill him like that. 

Plus, dealing with that clean up would be a pain in the ass, plastic wrap or no.

No. With his form slumped as it was, she almost felt like cutting his throat would be too much. She hadn’t used such…violent tactics in a while. Her anger had been expended, as twisted as the reason for it was. And…despite herself, in that moment, she wasn’t angry with Porter.

She was, for him making her have to go back on her promise to herself – and to Raelle, in an indirect way – but she wasn’t…in that moment, she didn’t hate him like she had in that hotel bar. And even then, she didn’t hate him like she had when she was with him. 

Seeing him had awoken that beast buried within, it was true, but even still…the beast was satiated. Loved. Murder didn’t hold the same bliss it used to, because for once…getting caught meant she would lose something she truly held dear, and she couldn’t risk that. 

She was at a crossroads, and as she took Porter in, she sighed to herself. She should head home. She should see Raelle, hold her, reassure herself that Raelle was still there, she wasn’t going anywhere, and that Porter was tied up, and soon to be entirely disposed of, and she would be able to breathe easy again.

Still, she sat on her singular metal stool, watching him. She should head home, but she…couldn’t. She wasn’t sure she could look Raelle in the face and lie to her about her fieldwork that day. She wasn’t sure she could pull on that mask, and she wasn’t an idiot: she knew that Raelle knew her. She knew that Raelle could tell, sometimes, when she was lying. And if Raelle wanted to push it, she would, and Scylla really didn’t feel like getting into it with her girlfriend that evening. With Porter’s presence putting Raelle on edge, she’d become more…insistent, on talking with Scylla about things she’d easily let go in the past, and the prospect made Scylla’s heart ache, because goddess, did she wish she could tell Raelle.

But she couldn’t. She knew what awaited her, if ever she told Raelle the truth. 

So she sat, sighing to herself. She would come home late, after Raelle had gone to bed. She would walk in, kiss her face until Raelle stirred, and she would murmur something about staying up and missing Scylla, and how was fieldwork? And Scylla would say it was fine, easy, long. And Raelle would smack her lips tiredly and roll over, pulling Scylla to her and kissing her before her breathing would even out, and Scylla would fall just a little more in love with her. 

The thought had tears springing to her eyes. 

She couldn’t lose that. 

She absolutely couldn’t. 

Porter groaned, and Scylla straightened where she sat. 

It was time.

\---

She wasn’t sure what she thought Porter’s first reaction would be, though his little huff of a laugh seemed…oddly fitting.

It was the next words out of his mouth that made her scowl deeply. 

“You haven’t changed at all,” and he let his head lull back against the metal pillar with a thud.

How fucking dare he have the gall to say that? He didn’t know a goddamn thing about her, let alone about all the work she’d put into herself, for so many fucking years, to get to the hopeful point she found herself at.

Scylla pursed her lips, but elected to say nothing in return. 

He started laughing. Really laughing. “Ah, fuck,” he said, and repeated, between laughs and chuckles that seemed to be increasing in volume and decreasing in control: slowly but surely turning maniacal. 

Scylla kept her expression as neutral as possible, looking at Porter with just the slightest expression of contempt. 

He yanked once, quickly, at his restraints, which, Scylla noted with pleasure, didn’t budge. “Got good at this, didn’t you?” he asked, “What number am I, Scylla? How many have come before me, huh? I saw, you know. All the newspapers and such. You’re much more careful than you used to be,” he spat. 

“You don’t know me at all, Porter,” Scylla said finally. Calmly. 

“Clearly that’s not true. Or you wouldn’t have me here,” he set his chin defiantly.

Despite herself, Scylla felt her eyebrows raise. That was…a somewhat astute observation, on his part. If…if he really had been using her kills as a way of assuring he was tracking her movements, then clearly, he did know her, at least a little. He knew that she was a killer and because he had told her that – well. She was a killer, so she would do what killers did, and that was why he was where he was, and he knew that. He did, to some extent…know her. The violent side of her, at any rate, though she couldn’t help but wonder how many of his observations were actually from her trail of bodies…

Her reaction made him laugh again, “I’m not the stupid, naïve boy you left in his bed, Scylla,” he glared.

“Clearly that’s not true, or I wouldn’t have you here,” Scylla said coolly back. 

Porter looked surprised for only a moment at his words being thrown back at him, before he snorted. “Fuck you, Scylla,” he spat. 

She didn’t react, and they sat in silence, taking each other in. Porter looked defiant at first, but as Scylla kept up her cool, detached demeanor…he started to hesitate. Started to fidget. She could see the hint of the muscles in his forearms working as he tried to use the fingers of his bound hands to figure out what kind of knot she’d used. His eyes started flicking back and forth: looking for an exit. For something he could use, if he managed to get free of his restraints.

Which, he wouldn’t. And even if he did, he wouldn’t find anything to help him. She’d relieved him of his Swiss Army Knife, and another, smaller switchblade that had been hidden in his boot. She’d taken the liberty of also taking said boots, his belt, and just about anything else he could have used as a weapon, stripping him down to essentially his undershirt and boxers. 

Short of removing his teeth, she had taken any and everything sharp that had been on his person, and the gun that had been in his bag had already been disposed of, along with the bag itself. She’d taken his IDs. His phone. His watch. All would be calmly and methodically destroyed before she left to go home, his phone already smashed to high hell and sitting at the bottom of a river, SIM to be destroyed with the other various cards in her possession. 

“So, what are you waiting for?” he finally broke.

Scylla shrugged. 

Honestly? 

She’d gotten used to waiting. 

Her first murders had been on impulse. Reckless, stupid, full of violence and carried out in fits of rage or want or need. Carried out without thought, only hunger. Only desperate darkness, screaming chaos that was dulled with the world when she took a life. A disconnect always happened, between her body and her actions, and it quieted everything inside of her, and goddess, it felt good to let out the pent-up energy.

It felt good to hurt, and to do so in such a permanent way. It felt good to take. To take that control. To take that which wasn’t hers to take, and take it anyway, because she fucking could. The power was a high unlike anything she’d ever felt. It expended her rage in a euphoric cloud of blissful disconnect, and her first few bodies had been in quick succession, like the air escaping from a burst balloon. 

And then…she’d cooled down. Had left Porter behind, had been forced to adapt to a new place, new surroundings, new challenges. Her anger finally expressed in the most brutal way possible, and temporarily put on the back-burner from the sheer novelty of her new home, she’d…she’d felt better. Lighter. And she always did, until the rage came back: seeping into her blood like a poison. 

Even still…she didn’t go on the same rampage as when she’d first started. She slowed her pace. She learned to love the process of methodical murder. Especially when she left Porter behind and her classes picked up…methodical became much more enticing. It gave her something to look forward to. Something to put her energy into. A puzzle to solve, a problem to which she had the answer, as long as she planned it correctly. It became a game. 

She couldn’t say when she began playing with her food, so to speak, but it had become something more or less normal. Now, she would wait days before she finished a kill. Days just…watching her victim. Watching them as they cycled through stages of grief as they confronted what their mortality meant. 

Maybe that was what did it. What had started to make murder feel like a chore, rather than a pleasure. Realizing the humanity in her victims suddenly made killing them not very fun. In fact…it had started to leave a bad taste in her mouth. Almost like it was…well, wrong. Which, she knew it was…but it was the first time she’d started to actually feel it. To realize it.

And that was entirely because of Raelle. Raelle, with her good heart and healing hands, who would never, in a million years, murder someone unless her own life was under threat. Raelle, who was Scylla’s opposite: who saw people as actual people, and not hollow puppets, walking through life without darkness embedded in their very beings. She couldn’t help but start to see the world through Raelle’s eyes, and, well…Raelle’s eyes were not fans of watching human beings suffer.

Murder had lost its fun. The last year of her residency and the start of her fellowship had kept her too busy for properly planning a hunt and a kill, let alone a proper disposal, and that, combined with Raelle’s influence…Scylla had lost interest. The anger had been sated: quieted to a point where she could control it. She had a job she loved, now. A woman she loved. Her life had purpose besides anger at the entire world, besides all the trauma she harbored inside, and the new connections had her going…soft. Her last body had been almost more out of habit than want or need to scratch that itch. 

Porter was because of pure necessity. But otherwise…she was done. 

But, now…it was just custom for her to let her victims stew. Let them think she would contemplate letting them go. It was hard to let go of that sense of power, that heady feeling of absolute control, however hollow it now rang. But power over Porter had always been a bit of a weak spot for Scylla. 

Still. As nice as it felt to make him squirm…and as much as she would do it, for days – out of habit and perhaps a tiny bit of nostalgia – she had to admit to herself that it would be smarter to kill him quickly. But she just…she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. 

Hell, in all actuality, she didn’t really _want_ to kill him at all. She’d put him so far behind her that, had he not done what he had done…had he not said what he’d said, she would have completely ignored him. 

But he’d left her no choice. 

The thought of Raelle once again had her hardening her resolve, so she raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Just fucking do it already, Scylla.” he snapped. 

Scylla observed him, still with that cool expression on her face. 

Finally, she smiled at him, letting just a hint of cruelty through. “See, Porter, the thing is…” she tilted her head, “You really don’t know me. At all. Not anymore.”

She stood, then, maintaining eye contact until she saw it dawn on him that she wasn’t going to end his life quickly. She nodded before she turned and walked away, hearing him yelling after her and smiling despite herself as she closed the door and locked him in to his new, temporary home.

\---

Raelle awoke to the quiet click of their bedroom door closing.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had been trying to stay up for Scylla, but, well…she did have work in the morning. 

She groaned as the bed dipped and a moment later, Scylla was kissing her cheek.

“I waited for you,” she croaked, stretching and rolling over in bed to send Scylla a sleepy smile.

Scylla smiled at her apologetically. “I figured you would. I’m so sorry I didn’t text: battery died. I would have told you not to wait up,”

“And I would have anyway,” Raelle said, stifling a yawn. “How was fieldwork?”

Something flickered in Scylla’s eyes, but she rolled them not a moment later, so Raelle didn’t focus on it. 

“Burdensome,” was the word Scylla settled on, and Raelle chuckled despite herself.

“I love it when you do that, you know,” she murmured, and Scylla quirked an eyebrow at her. 

“Do what?”

“Pull out a random-ass silver dollar word just to flex on me about how smart you are,” she reached up and pushed some of Scylla’s hair behind her ear. 

Scylla chuckled. “It wasn’t a flex, that was just the most adequate word,”

“Mm, talk nerdy to me,” Raelle purred, pushing herself up onto her elbows to give Scylla a kiss. 

Scylla sunk onto the bed beside Raelle, who rolled them over, half on top of her girlfriend, Scylla still very much in her street clothes. 

“Mmm,” Scylla hummed against her lips, pulling away and murmuring, “Tumultuous,”

“And?” Raelle asked, smiling despite herself.

She meant it. She found it so incredibly sexy how intelligent Scylla was. 

Not that Raelle wasn’t. But words had never been her forte, much as they interested her. She liked to read, and she liked to try her hand at writing, but neither were strong suits. She was better with actions: with impulse and snap decisions, which served her well in her position in emergency medicine. Sports were also much more her speed. Physicality suited her better than words, and so she truly admired Scylla’s command of language. It never ceased to amaze her, the sheer size of Scylla’s vocabulary and how easily she wielded it. 

“Ubiquitous,”

“That one isn’t as sexy, that one I know,” Raelle muttered, wrapping her arms around Scylla’s torso and burying her face into the crook of Scylla’s neck, placing a lazy kiss there. 

Scylla snorted, “And you don’t know ‘tumultuous’?”

“Mmm,” Raelle hummed, closing her eyes and breathing deep, the smell of Scylla filling her nostrils. Just a simple smell, warm, nondescript but distinctly Scylla. A slight extra musk, maybe from the fieldwork. 

“Thank you for the photo, by the way,” Raelle murmured, letting her lips gently ghost over Scylla’s skin, which she knew drove her crazy. 

Scylla’s breath hitched, and Raelle couldn’t help her pleased smirk that followed that noise, heat pleasantly, lazily shooting down her body. 

She could pull Scylla in for a bout of sex, if she really wanted to. But she was warm, and Scylla was next to her, and she was tired, and contented, and as wonderful as sex with Scylla was, and as well as she knew she would sleep afterwards…having Scylla’s warmth next to her was like a dose of melatonin, and it had her shutting her eyes, happy. 

God, Scylla made her so happy. 

“You looked so cute,”

Scylla huffed a laugh. “You’re so cute,” she shot back, and Raelle felt Scylla turn and plant a kiss on her forehead. “But I need you to let me go for a minute, so I can change,”

Raelle quirked an eyebrow, eyes still closed. “You trying to seduce me?”

“Do I have to try?” Scylla’s tone was cheeky, which had Raelle opening one eye to look at her. 

“Touché.” She conceded, tightening her grip on Scylla rather than loosening it.

Scylla kissed her then, and Raelle moaned, surprised by the fervor in it: hungry, demanding, but loving.

Okay, well, fuck, if Scylla was gonna keep that up…

“Are you going to help me out of these clothes or what, Rae?” Scylla said in nearly a growl, pulling away just long enough to get the words out. 

Okay, shit, now Raelle was awake, opening both eyes to see a seductive smirk on Scylla’s face. 

“Mmm, yes ma’am,” Raelle surged forward, connecting their lips while hastily lifting Scylla’s shirt, making quick work of both it and her bra, before dragging her half-naked girlfriend down on top of her, kissing her fiercely. 

And, really…she’d needed that. She needed to feel Scylla moving against her, moaning against her neck, breath hot, body hotter. She needed to feel how wet Scylla was for her, needed to feel their connection and their trust and their love, communicated through sweat and taste and the husky smell of delicious sex filling the room, and she needed it because…

Because she missed Scylla. Which felt…stupid, to think that. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen her in ages: indeed, they’d been separated for far longer before. Sometimes days. So a few hours in the afternoon wasn’t exactly unusual. A whole day wasn’t out of the ordinary. But…something felt off. And Raelle hated that she couldn’t shake that feeling. Hadn’t been able to shake that feeling.

She hated it even more when it taunted her, even with a naked and satiated Scylla in her arms, already asleep after their tryst, leaving Raelle awake, lost in her thoughts and annoyed despite herself. Annoyed that she was tired, her body ready for sleep, satisfied and flooded with oxytocin from the pure physical presence of Scylla’s bare skin touching hers. 

But her mind was awake, her heart beating steadily in her chest, her brow furrowed and a slight frown on her face despite it all.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like feeling like this. She didn’t like it because she wanted to trust Scylla. She well and truly did. But Scylla didn’t usually have early morning shift calls. Since her fellowship had started, her schedule had been more or less consistent, barring emergencies. And Raelle couldn’t help but think about how…convenient, it was that Scylla had had an early call and then sudden and unexpected fieldwork.

It was feasible, of course. And…if it weren’t for Porter…if it weren’t for the fact that Raelle knew he was probably still in town, lurking in Starbucks or something where Scylla could find him...could meet him. Could speak with him. Could-

Raelle shook her head, trying to rid herself of the dangerous thoughts. Scylla wouldn’t do that. There was something between them but Scylla wouldn’t do anything as stupid as act on that tension, and certainly not in a way that would so thoroughly be spitting directly in Raelle’s face. 

No. Scylla wouldn’t do that.

Raelle just wished she could fully believe that…

She sighed to herself, burying her nose into Scylla’s hair and inhaling deeply, tightening her arms for only a moment around Scylla’s middle. 

She gently kissed Scylla’s back a moment later, settling in and trying to concentrate on Scylla’s rhythmic breathing. Because, in the end, there was nothing she could do. Worrying and being upset about nagging feelings wasn’t doing her any good. Indeed, all it did was raise her blood pressure and her risk for an ulcer, not to mention the effect paranoia would have on her mental state, so she tried to distract herself, pushing aside all of the feelings to be present, with Scylla, in that moment.

Thankfully, it worked, her own breathing calming, the delicious feeling of sleep settling heavy on her frame, and she finally closed her eyes. 

“I love you,” she whispered into Scylla’s back, knowing full well she wouldn’t hear, but she hadn’t said it for Scylla, anyway. She said it for herself, a final reassurance that she was being silly and everything would be fine, even with Porter still in town. 

And with that, she finally let herself sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more of a peek inside of serial killer Scylla's mind and methodology. It's uh...it's pretty dark in there, but like, I did warn you! Also, Scylla's so in love with Raelle, I'm not crying, you are!! And a bit of sassy Scylla with that "throwing Porter's words back in his face" bit, honestly that may be one of my favorite lines in the fic. We love sassy serial killer Scylla.
> 
> Also Raelle being so intuitive and realizing that something is off but she's so in love... Honestly can we blame her? 
> 
> Anyway, that's it for this week! Hope you enjoyed this latest installment and I'll see you all for the next one! Have a good week, take care of yourselves!


	6. A Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Flings this chapter out into the wild* Be free, my pretty!! I am once again shirking my author/editor duality and duty and not rereading this yet again, I'm done polishing this chapter, is very shiny I hope you all like it! I've broken my fingers shining this baby up so if there are mistakes, it's y'all's problem at this point! 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Scylla didn’t feel like seeing Porter. 

She didn’t like the way he made her feel. Like…not like the old Scylla, per se. But very much like an iteration of her. The expectation hung in the air like a ghost, and Scylla hated it. She wasn’t that person, anymore. She wasn’t. But some part of her still looked at Porter the same way that version of her had: with contempt. With impatience.

Then, because she just loved to hate him. Because he was pathetic.

Now? 

Now, because of everything he stood for. The last piece of a past she’d long thought dead and buried. The last piece of a past she tried very hard to keep hidden. 

It was her reckoning, his coming back, and the thought had her clenching her jaw, because she hated that her reckoning came in the form of indulging impulses she had worked to put behind her. For Raelle.

It was a regression, what she was doing with him, but…what choice did she have? 

She could still feel Raelle’s presence inside of her, her long fingers curling deliciously – the memory of the trace of Raelle’s tongue on her thighs – and it didn’t make walking into the room in which she was holding Porter any easier, but she clenched her jaw and walked in, already annoyed before he even looked up at her. 

“Was wondering when you’d be back,” Porter croaked, raising his chin defiantly as she walked up to him. “Bit stupid, just leaving me, isn’t it? What if I’d gotten out, huh? You think I wouldn’t immediately tell everyone?” His voice was hoarse. He’d likely screamed his vocal cords raw the night before, once Scylla had left him alone. 

A risk, but one she was comfortable taking. They were far enough outside of town, in an empty and large enough building, and he was so deep within its bowels, the basement insulated by the ground around it, the windows a thick plastic and glass pane, that she had no doubt his cries were heard only by the walls.

“You can’t get out,” Scylla deadpanned, to which he laughed, fighting his restraints.

“You wanna bet?” he spat. 

Scylla stopped in her walking right at his side, squatting down next to him, careful to maintain just enough distance that he wouldn’t be able to head butt her. He craned his neck to the side just a little: just enough to be uncomfortable, and Scylla let a small, sadistic smile show despite herself.

Good. He could use a little pain. 

“Sure, Porter. I’ll make a bet. You feel like phoning a friend? Maybe we can ask the other people who’ve been in your position how they escaped. Oh, wait,” she dropped the smile and raised her eyebrows.

Porter clenched his jaw. 

“Unlike some people in this room, I learn from my mistakes,” Scylla said coolly, putting the bag in her hand on the ground beside her. She started pulling a few supplies out of it, gloves already in place on her hands from before she’d walked in.

“What are you doing?” Porter asked, and Scylla shushed him, tearing open a vacuum-sealed package and carefully twisting one end of the needle into the long tube attached to the bag. She reached a hand around Porter’s arm, right at the elbow crook, the hollow of the vertical metal H beam allowing her the maneuverability to try and feel what she was looking for.

Her sudden touch made him jump.

“What-” he asked, but she didn’t answer, feeling one more time and pressing on the spot, shifting on the balls of her feet. With what little room she had left to stick him, she held his arm steady and used her other hand to push the needle in. 

She had to twist the skin of the arm to get a good enough look – an action that had Porter hissing in pain – but sure enough, the flash had appeared and she nodded to herself, satisfied. Thank the goddess men usually had such thick veins: it made them much easier to find. Not that she didn’t mind stabbing him a few more times if she’d missed the stick, but it was just as well it was on the first try. The less time she spent so close to Porter, the better. 

Really, she should have stuck the IV in that first day, after she’d knocked him out and tied him up. But the IV bags were in short supply – not exactly easy to steal as they were – and honestly…she kind of wanted to taunt him. To have him awake, and see her so close, yet know he couldn’t do anything. To laud that power over him.

And to cause him pain. It wouldn’t have been the same, having him out cold when she stuck him.

She grabbed the tape and wrapped it unceremoniously around the needle, assuring that it was secure. Or, well. Secure enough. If Porter managed to somehow rip it out, it would do nothing but speed up his death. He’d starve before she could get her kicks, what few of them she may get, and while the prospect wasn’t exactly ideal, it wasn’t one she would mind, necessarily. 

She could just let him starve, of course. Tie him up and leave him. Let nature take its course. Leave his corpse to the maggots, tied to that post until all that remained were his bones. 

But that wasn’t her style. Never had been. She _could_ do it, but if she did…there was no guarantee he wouldn’t escape, unless she continually checked on him. Which she would be doing anyway, but what was the fun of watching him simply…waste away? Cease to be? Where was the thrill in that? The satisfaction? The challenge? 

Where was the dignity? 

Not that being stripped down to underwear, tied up, and murdered was much more dignified than starvation, but starvation just seemed so…passive.

And if there was one thing Scylla wasn’t, it was passive. 

Dignified, his death may not be, but at least it would be active. At least she was keeping him alive, with the express purpose that _she_ got to choose when his time was up. At least that power was there, and it was her decision, and hers alone, when he got to die. When she ended his misery. 

A control she had never truly been granted for her own pain.

So, no. She couldn’t just let him starve. She didn’t _want_ to just let him starve. 

“What is that?” Porter asked, sounding frantic, trying desperately to get a glimpse over his shoulder at what Scylla had just hooked him up to. 

“That’s your meal for the next few days,” Scylla said flatly, standing up and taking the bag with her. There was a hook situated on the beam, welded on for who knew what purpose. Wires, maybe. Scylla didn’t know, and didn’t care. She’d chosen that beam specifically because of that hook, and she hung the IV bag from it. 

She only had a small stash of stolen IV bags. No more than three at any given time: the hospital kept strict control of them, and smuggling them out was an absolute pain in her ass. Thankfully, like so many other large businesses…things could fall through the cracks. And Scylla was nothing if not an opportunist: when she could take advantage of a situation, she did. And opportunities presented themselves more often than one might think, in hospitals.

It also helped that no one ever suspected the doctors in the morgue, usually so entrenched in its walls and the whispers of the dead that they hardly had a reason to leave, let alone to steal IV nutrition bags. IV drugs, maybe, but not nutrition.

Technically, one bag was supposed to be for one day, but she’d have to ration it. Another annoyance. 

She sighed to herself as she stood.

Porter snorted. “Wow, an IV. Nutritious.”

“Better than whatever shit you were eating at the hotel. You got a few pizzas, if I remember correctly,” Scylla said dryly. Porter wouldn’t have learned how to cook. He knew how to throw shit in the microwave or pick up a phone. 

He huffed, and Scylla turned back to him once she’d put enough distance between them, forcing her expression into neutrality as she looked at him, and he glared back. 

“You were following me,”

“Of course I was, Porter. I didn’t know what the fuck you were doing here. And don’t feed me ‘a buddy’s funeral’ bullshit. You and I know that was a fucking lie.”

Porter set his jaw, “I suspected you might tail me, you know. If you were…what I thought you were. Made sure to be on my best behavior for you,” he set his jaw, “How long were you following me?”

Scylla snorted. “How long were _you_ following _me_?” she hissed back. “You’re such a hypocrite. Don’t act so shocked that I followed you when you’ve been following me for ages now, apparently. Just couldn’t let me go, huh?” she let a sneer break through her neutral expression, “And you say I haven’t changed at all,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re just as pathetic as always, aren’t you Porter?”

Porter didn’t answer, but by looking away, he may as well have, and Scylla felt that cruel smile take form on her features. 

“Still came running back to me the moment you thought I actually wanted you. Despite it all…despite all the shit I put you through. Despite the years and thousands of miles I put between us. Despite never contacting you. Despite telling you I could never love you, over and over again, for years. Despite literally hurting you. Over and over and over again. Despite signing yourself up for the Air Force. I bet they didn’t teach you shit. You traded one abuser for another,” Scylla bared her teeth in a snarl. “And you still just…dropped everything and came back to me, tail between your legs, as soon as you had a small glimmer of hope that I’d take you back. That I’d take you back and do the exact same shit to you that I always did. You’re so fucked up in the head, Porter,” Scylla actually couldn’t help a laugh, derisive as it was.

“You are a _murderer_!” Porter spat, his tone full of disbelief that she dared to call _him_ fucked up. 

“Oh, are you shocked?” Scylla shot, voice suddenly full of venom, “Are you shocked that the woman who threatened to rip your throat out with her bare hands and then actually tried to do it – who choked you to the point that you passed out on more than one occasion – might turn into a murderer? Are you shocked that someone who liked to torture you maybe got her kicks out of doing the same to other people?” she sneered.

Porter’s nostrils flared as he glared at Scylla, and Scylla folded her arms, glaring right back. 

“Are you really shocked, Porter?”

He deflated. She watched the fight leave him as he quietly settled into himself.

“No,”

It was so quiet that Scylla almost didn’t hear it. 

“But…yes. I just…god, Scylla. I never actually thought you would go through with it. Until I was finally out of the military and had time to just sit down and…look at all that you’d done. You were always so…hateful. So angry. I always knew that theoretically, you could kill someone. In a fit of rage. But I still…I never thought you would actually do it,”

“You didn’t want to think I could actually do it,” Scylla translated. 

Porter heaved a sigh. “Maybe I didn’t. Sue me. I wanted to think my girlfriend was better than that,”

“I wasn’t, Porter. You, of all people, should have known.”

“I suspected. I didn’t want to know. I loved you so much, Scylla. Too much. Why would I ever want to see a murderer, where I only saw my girlfriend?”

“Self-preservation, maybe?” she asked with a shrug. 

Porter huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “We both know I don’t have that.”

It was the most self-aware thing she had heard Porter say, which had her quirking an eyebrow at him. 

“Self-esteem?” Scylla tried, her voice a touch gentler, because she already knew the answer. Because despite herself, and the circumstances…it was a joke. A joke she had no right to make, but when it came to Porter…when had that ever stopped her?

Porter actually laughed. A real, hoarse laugh. “Ah, we both know I don’t have any of that.” He let his head lull back. “Self-worth, self-esteem, self-preservation. Self-control. If I had any of that, do you think I would have stayed with you as long as I did?” he looked at her through hooded eyes, given the angle. 

Scylla shook her head despite herself. “Lucky me,”

Porter straightened where he sat, letting out a sigh. “So. How does this work, then? You keep me alive for a few days, then kill me?”

Scylla shrugged.

“Why?”

Scylla shrugged again. “Why not?”

“Seems like a stupid risk to take, keeping someone alive when you know you’re going to kill them,”

“Takes all the fun out of it, to kill them immediately. You don’t get the same fear,”

Her words seemed to hit him like a punch in the gut, expression turning sour. 

“God, you really just…you do this to people. You tie them up and you just…leave them. For days on end. To stew in their fear. That’s…that’s so fucked up, Scylla,”

And yeah, it was. And she knew that it was. She knew that. When she first started realizing the sheer power that came from that long, drawn-out fear – the fear of knowing death was coming, suddenly much closer, but still not knowing when it would come for them – it had been so interesting, so captivating, to see at first. To know that she was playing god, however temporarily. To know that in that moment, her victim’s world had narrowed to just them.

People said interesting things, when they were put in that predicament. All of their thoughts, their fears and regrets. Their happiest moments and their most tragic. People became real, in those moments. Fear chipped away at all the masks they had used throughout their lives, until they were left, bare-faced and resigned. Until it dawned on them that all they’d had, had been this one life. And it was about to end. And with nothing to lose, they would spill their guts to their murderer.

Scylla had found that so fascinating. So incredibly telling. And she found herself reciprocating the favor, letting down her guard, pulling down her own mask to reveal the monster, and the woman, underneath: a corpse of dead hopes and violence, chaos and darkness. 

It was fucked up on so many levels, and she realized that, but…it had helped. 

God, it had helped. 

And with time…with time, the time she kept them alive just grew longer and longer, not wanting to end their lives. Wanting to continue to connect. To continue to see that goodness in people: with no pretense, just themselves. She found she quite liked people, when all the chips were down and they had nothing to lose by just being themselves.

She had never seen or felt anything like it, outside of her bad habit. 

Until Raelle. 

“Did you do this with all of them?” Porter’s quiet question had her snapping out of her reverie. 

She raised an eyebrow, “You already know the answer to that,”

He tilted his head in confusion, and Scylla rolled her eyes.

“God, Porter, were you actually that drunk at the bar?”

Realization dawned, and he clenched his jaw. “I…I thought – I wasn’t sure that was actually you. That you’d actually...done that. That the beach, back home…that was…” he paled. “That was brutal, what you did to that guy.”

Scylla sighed through her nose. “It was,” she said quietly. 

Because it was: it was simply undeniable. Her first body had been among her most violent. It had broken something in her. When she’d first started, taking a life – taking that first life – had filled her with a visceral disgust so deep it morphed into twisted, muted pleasure. Mostly…it quieted the chaos. The pleasure came from the ringing in her ears as she let the rock she’d used to finish the job fall from her grasp. From the way that suddenly all she could hear was that ringing, and muted sounds of waves crashing. The pleasure came from the sheer numbness that tingled all over, to the very tips of her fingers. It was in how the world had suddenly felt like it had slowed to a snail’s pace. It was in how even blinking felt like it took several seconds. How the world suddenly felt a million miles away, blanketed in muted colors and sounds. It was…a relief, to feel that nothingness. Not even anger permeated that muted calm. It let her rest. It gave her reprieve. It gave her something other than her own pain. Let her think on something other than all the bullshit that was her life. 

Pleasure and pain had become one within her that day, and she was master of the universe when she was able to inflict it on others once more: to expend and soothe her chaos at the same time, to the tune of horrible, brutal violence. 

At first, anyway.

And poor Porter had just been a whetstone to hone those feelings. To allow them to finally flourish. To desensitize her to all that she would one day do.

Honestly, it was a miracle she hadn’t killed him.

“He didn’t deserve that,” Porter said, looking at Scylla with disgust.

Scylla laughed, the sound hollow. “What do I care what he deserved?”

“Just seems unfair, is all,” Porter said, his voice actually…saddened. And, indeed…he looked positively bleak, as though realizing just how much of a monster Scylla truly was. As if murdering a man because he was someone who “deserved” it suddenly made it any less of a murder. People’s morals were so transparent: murder was wrong unless it was for recompense. A debt to be paid for other wrongs committed. Revenge by another name. As if that somehow made taking a life excusable. 

Hypocrites.

“Oh, we want to talk fair?” Scylla straightened where she stood. “Do you think that fair exists, Porter? That there is some cosmic karma, just twiddling its thumbs, waiting for the criminals and the ‘bad guys’ to just fuck up, one more time?” Scylla snorted. “Fair doesn’t exist,”

And that, she knew for a fact. Because “fair” would have meant she didn’t have her parents murdered before her very eyes. “Fair” would have meant that even if she did have to witness it, she would have been given proper treatment. “Fair” would have meant good homes in foster care, not the bullshit she got and had to deal with. “Fair” would have meant that her parents wouldn’t be dead and it wouldn’t be so easy, to take a life. It wouldn’t feel right, because it would feel wrong, but both felt fine. She was learning, slowly, through Raelle, the true weight that life held. Or, well…relearning. She had no doubt that with time, she would come to cringe at her actions. Perhaps she would even feel some sense of guilt, though she doubted it. But, in that moment…in that moment, she felt nothing. 

Which, in all fairness, was admittedly already something. From the visceral pleasure she’d experienced before…feeling nothing was progress. 

Porter set his jaw, raising it defiantly at Scylla, “I think karma is coming for you, Scylla. Maybe not immediately. Maybe not in this very moment. But it’s coming. And what will you do, then? What will Raelle think?”

Scylla’s blood ran cold. 

“You keep Raelle’s name out of your fucking mouth,” Scylla snarled. 

“She’s why you’re killing me, isn’t she? So that she won’t find out. But the truth will come out, Scylla. It always does. And then what? She’ll hate you.”

Scylla saw red, digging her nails into her forearms to keep herself from doing something stupid, like crossing the room and crushing Porter’s windpipe. 

Goddess, how satisfying that would be…

She forced herself to close her eyes and take a few calming breaths. No. She would not do that. 

Adrenaline spiked in her veins anyway, to prepare her for the sheer force it would take to traumatize his larynx with her hands firmly around his neck. She shivered at the memory of what that felt like: the terrible gratification.

She finally opened her eyes, to see Porter looking at her with a knowing expression. 

She scowled. She couldn’t let Porter see just how much his comments about Raelle affected her, but part of her also knew that it was way too late. Porter knew that Raelle was her weakness. He had likely known from the moment he’d stepped foot into their apartment. And he had eyes: he saw how saying her name got Scylla riled up like nothing ever truly had, even when she had been all too willing to hurt Porter at the drop of a hat. Her temper had always been on a hairpin trigger, but with Raelle…with Raelle’s name falling from Porter’s lips…it was even worse. 

Like no time had passed at all. Like she hadn’t changed at all.

And she hated that he had the power to do that to her: a decade and more of progress, erased in an instant.

It was her turn to clench her jaw, slightly grinding her teeth, trying to maintain her composure. She could not lose it in front of him, for many reasons, not the least of which her being rash could lead to complications of many varieties: leaving evidence, messy kill, or even him escaping, if she wasn’t careful. She had no doubt he’d spent a lot of his time trying to think of how to get out of his bindings, and she didn’t need to get herself too close to him and end up knocked out or worse: taken with him to the grave for her carelessness. 

She had to remain calm. 

“What would Raelle think?” he repeated.

Scylla shook her head, trying to rid it of the anger that still coursed through her. “Doesn’t matter, Porter. Because I’m not going to tell her, and you’re certainly not going to tell her, so I don’t see how she could find out,” Scylla said through clenched teeth.

Porter leaned back against the beam. “You underestimate me. And you underestimate her,” he said.

Scylla felt her blood run cold again for just a moment, before she shook his words off. “I don’t see how, Porter. You’re…predisposed. And she has no reason to suspect,”

“Doesn’t she?” he raised his eyebrows, and she didn’t like that implication, dread slowly running down her spine.

No, Raelle didn’t.

…did she?

“No, she doesn’t,” Scylla said, with more conviction.

Porter only shrugged, refusing to look at Scylla, and they settled into silence.

\---

Raelle knew Scylla had fieldwork. Some kind of secret, special project that had started in the woods and ended in the morgue. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called in for some kind of high-priority assignment like that: bodies were found and they needed to be dissected. It was just part of the job.

Raelle knew that. Scylla had told her how they’d brought the found specimens in the night before, and were now working on them, which would demand extra hours of her. Raelle knew that.

Still. She’d hoped…after Scylla’s residency had ended, that the long hours wouldn’t be quite as…brutal. She wasn’t entirely sure how fellowships worked compared to residencies, but Scylla’s final year had been a…trying time. Perhaps naively, Raelle had hoped the fellowship would be a bit tamer. It had seemed that way, at first: the hours a bit more stable. But, well…clearly, things were subject to change.

She stared at her phone, a couple of simple texts staring back at her.

_Hey Scyl, how’s the project?_

_I’m ordering pizza, you want anything special on it?_

And then,

_Okayyy, I’ll be sure to order extra anchovies. ;) Miss you, beautiful._

Raelle sighed. She’d ordered the pizza hours ago (no anchovies: they both hated them). She’d eaten one slice before losing her appetite. She’d called Tally and Abigail just for something to do, and she had been contemplating watching Netflix, but the thought wasn’t a particularly appealing one. All the shows in their queue were shows she and Scylla were supposed to watch together, and truth be told, she wasn’t in the mood to mindlessly browse Netflix for several hours and then just…give up without having watched anything.

And she knew that was exactly what would happen, so she had just…sat, staring at the wall in their kitchen, and sometimes, at those unread messages. 

It was only the second day of Scylla’s new project, and Raelle didn’t like that the project left a sour taste in her mouth. She didn’t like that she didn’t even believe that Scylla _had_ a project. 

She knew it was ridiculous and petty to think that. She didn’t like that she thought it, because she knew it was ridiculous. She knew she was being paranoid, and she hated that because she wasn’t a paranoid person. And yet…

Scylla’d had projects before. She had been, after all, top of her class during med school and her anatomic pathology residency. So much so that she’d been nearly immediately awarded the fellowship, once she’d completed her last year of said residency. She’d basically been Izadora’s right-hand resident, so the fellowship was no surprise, and really, she was all but guaranteed a job at the hospital once she finished the fellowship. They’d be stupid not to hire her, and she would come with a glowing recommendation from Izadora. 

She was basically a shoe-in, which was honestly so great. Because Raelle liked where they lived. She liked the life they had built together. She liked that she had roots. She liked that she had a sense of community. She liked…she liked her life. She was content.

Or, well, she had been, but Porter had sort of ruined that a little. 

Especially the fact that he was still around.

Which was…fine. It was fine. Whatever he needed, she wouldn’t begrudge him: god knew that when she’d first gotten out of the Army, she sometimes just wanted to disappear as well. Adjusting to civilian life was…not easy, and she hadn’t seen much combat. She’d seen enough, though. Enough that she’d had nightmares, always two sets of eyes staring at her blankly, dried blood running out of their mouths from the bullets – her bullets – in their stomachs.

Enemy combatants. She’d tried to save them, too. But still…they’d died as she tried to keep them alive, and their deaths had haunted her. Her unit had helped a lot, actually, with that, and with her transition to civilian life. Having them close…it’d kept her sane. It’d made the rough days bearable.

And she could only imagine how much more overwhelming that feeling was, having served for more time and then losing a brother in arms after years fighting together. After losing someone who _did_ understand. Someone who probably had helped Porter in a lot of ways. 

It was just…weird, that he would choose to disappear in the same town his ex lived in. It was just weird that he didn’t go elsewhere in Pennsylvania, like Philly or Hershey or any of the other various tourist traps. There was certainly more to do there, but no…he’d chosen their little nook. He’d chosen their humble little city and she resented that she knew the exact reason why.

It was obvious. He was there for Scylla. Despite Scylla clearly not wanting anything to do with him, he was just…there. A storm cloud in their otherwise sunny lives. 

She resented that his presence made her so uncomfortable. So insecure about her relationship with Scylla. Were it anyone else – one of Scylla’s old one-night stands, for example – she wondered if she would be so jealous.

But then again…one of Scylla’s old flings probably didn’t care enough to just…show up creepily at their apartment. Let alone stay in a hotel for an extended period of time in the same place. And one of Scylla’s old flings didn’t have years of history with her…

Raelle didn’t like to think about the lengths he must have gone to in order to have figured out where they fucking lived. In the end, Anacostia hadn’t even been able to run the background check (she’d exasperatedly reminded Raelle, in her answering text, that a first name and basic description was not enough to get proper records on any one person, especially someone with a name like Porter, and Raelle had realized she actually didn’t know Porter’s last name, but Anacostia said she would keep an eye out for him regardless), and that didn’t make Raelle feel any better about how creepy it was that he’d managed to find their address.

The thought had her furrowing her brow, pulling out her phone and opening Instagram. 

She didn’t use it often, but she was fairly certain she didn’t have her location turned on. She frowned, going through the photos she was tagged in. Most with her unit or with Scylla. 

She sighed. She supposed it was pretty easy to have tracked Scylla down, actually. Between social media and anything else that could be found by Googling someone. 

That didn’t make it any less invasive, which also just didn’t sit well with Raelle. 

Really, nothing about the situation sat right with her. Why now? What had spurred him into deciding that now was the time to reach out to his ex? How had he not realized that she had a girlfriend, if he was stalking Scylla’s social media page? She was tagged in a myriad of things: and almost all of those tagged posts were with Raelle. It was obvious they were a couple. 

So…what? Had he lied? Had he just assumed they were roommates? Gal pals? Despite the multiple posts where it was pretty obvious they were romantically involved?

What did he want? Was his goal…closure? Was he meeting with Scylla, or Scylla meeting with him…for that? Did he want an apology? To hash it out?

Did he want her back? 

How long was he going to be around, really? He’d said a few days but that had been nearly a week and a half ago, and though she hadn’t seen him since the bar…it almost didn’t matter if he was still around. It almost didn’t matter because he was still stuck in her head, on loop, all the things he said eroding, slowly but surely, the trust she had in Scylla. Eroding her patience for Scylla’s deflections about her past. Eroding the very foundation upon which their relationship was built.

And he had done all of that in a matter of minutes. He continued to do all of that despite the distinct lack of his physical presence, and Raelle wished she could just let it go but…she couldn’t. 

She couldn’t, because something was off, and she didn’t know what it was, but she did know it was there, and she didn’t like feeling as though she was just simply out of the loop. That something was happening between Scylla and Porter and only the two of them knew: that tension between them still palpable, even as a memory. 

All of that, swirling around in her head, was what had her sat there, scowling, cold pizza in front of her and her mind running a mile a minute with doubts and questions that she hated that she was asking herself or even daring to think. 

But she couldn’t help it. It was just…oddly convenient, that Scylla’s “project” came around right in time for Porter’s stay. It was odd that she’d found Scylla following him that one day. It was odd that despite Scylla’s clear distaste for Porter, she seemed mostly like she wanted Raelle to just…forget him. Rather than tell Raelle the whole truth, Scylla dismissed Porter’s presence as nothing important, but clearly, to Scylla…he was something.

Nothing good, but still…something. There was something there, and that was simply undeniable. 

Raelle scowled harder. 

No. She couldn’t entertain those thoughts. Couldn’t entertain the little green monster. 

She shoved the thoughts aside, picking her phone up once more and opening her messages to Scylla.

_I’m tired so heading to bed early. Pizza will be in the fridge._

_Message me back when you can, I know you’re probably elbow-deep in a corpse._

_And I love you regardless, you sexy-weird Necro. <3 _

Raelle sighed and shook her head to herself, forcing herself to reach out and grab another piece of pizza. She took a bite, and then another, until she’d made her way through two more slices, her paranoia subsiding slightly with a full stomach.

 _I love you too, you sexy-weird Fixer. <3_ was Scylla’s response, received as Raelle brushed her teeth.

Despite herself, she smiled fondly at her screen. 

_Sleep well, I can’t wait to get home and kiss you. <3 _

Raelle sighed, allowing the warmth of the response to envelope her. 

God, she really was so lucky. She had Scylla, she loved her, and that was all that mattered. She used her pinky of the hand that was holding her toothbrush to type out her final message for the night, mouth full of toothpaste.

_< 3_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raelle is SO IN LOVE, BB. *cries* 
> 
> And Scylla playing with her food...she's got a process, alas, so it had to happen. And she's got so much history with Porter...
> 
> Anyway! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, a lil' shorter than the others but just as meaty, hopefully! If you enjoyed it drop a line, feed the author so maybe more content comes your way, and enjoy your week! ^_^


	7. A Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies, welcome back! Time for the next chapter in our journey together, it's the third longest in the fic so hope you guys like it! I think I said in the notes at the beginning of this fic that I'd put a warning for the chapter with the suicide mention on Porter's part, which is this chapter, so yeah, just something to be aware of! There's no detail, it's literally just a mention, but I want all of you to be safe! 
> 
> Anyway, no further comments from me here, on with the fic!

Scylla felt the stab of guilt, sharp in her gut, as she stared at Raelle’s messages. 

She’d received them hours ago, her phone tucked safely away in their car, parked in the hospital lot. She’d parked the rental on a side street and walked there, and she’d fired off a response, smiling when she received the little heart from Raelle and then letting her smile drop. 

Fuck. It was late. Raelle would likely already be in bed, since she said she was going to bed early, and Scylla let her head fall back on the headrest behind her, groaning softly to herself.

It wasn’t like she enjoyed spending time away from Raelle. Especially time with Porter. And it wasn’t even like she spent that much time with Porter. It was just…everything else. Going to where she parked the rental, getting out to where she was holding him, sitting with him for an hour or two or maybe even three. Then, retracing her steps. Wiping away all evidence of her presence. Locking Porter in and stashing the key. Walking all the way to where she’d parked the rental. Getting back to town, parking the rental, getting her car from the hospital lot, and then driving home. It was…cumbersome and time-consuming, but…

But, this was part of the process. It’d been part of her process for a while. Ever since she’d started medical school – which had all but taken over her life – taking her time with her victims had just become the norm. Finding secure places to hold them so that they wouldn’t be disturbed for however long she decided to keep them alive. Bringing them there. Deciding how she wanted to kill them, and what she wanted to do with them after. Her crazy hours, especially after her second year in med school and beyond, had ended up dictating the rest of her life, and she was often too tired to carry out quick kills with little planning, so she’d been forced to adapt. She’d learned to savor the hours she would set aside, scouring for locations. She’d learned to savor the days or sometimes weeks of planning she started to put into her kills, and then to savor the days over which she could drag one out. She learned to savor the process. To savor the feeling, to bottle it within her, to carry her through rough days. 

It was…part of what had showed her that she could actually live…without murder. 

She just hadn’t wanted to, at the time. 

Not until things started getting serious with Raelle.

At first…Raelle had just seemed like she would end up being another fling. Scylla’d had a few all through university and med school: people who seemed fun, and just damaged enough to not question her…idiosyncrasies, which Scylla knew formed part of her charm: some kind of mysterious aura that seemed to keep people coming back to her.

Raelle hadn’t seemed any different, at first. They’d met at a bar that played pop music too loud and couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be a country bumpkin bar or a sleek nightclub, and all things considered, that was probably why they’d both found themselves there in the first place: a mash up of their two different worlds.

Scylla had taken to haunting the place, keen eyes sharp for someone who would be…suitable.

She didn’t always use bars as a hunting ground, but it did give her good glimpses of who people were. And most people were…goddess. Pathetic, honestly. Sad men trying to show off to women who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else. Men having pissing contests in the form of aggressively hitting on the women around them, or talking over one another, or arguing over a billiards game, just being overly…there. Taking up too much space for Scylla’s tastes. Thinking too highly of themselves.

If there was one thing that could be said about Porter: at least he never fucking did that. He didn’t peacock: he didn’t have enough confidence to do so, but also, it just wasn’t who he was. She had to give him that…

The thought of men in general had had her curling her lip, annoyed by their very presence.

She actually liked men, if that could be believed. But she’d been gravitating to the wonderful world of women in that time, which was when Raelle had caught her eye. Sat on her own at a high table, looking at the same game of billiards that had Scylla curling her lip, and they’d made eye contact. 

Something in Raelle’s look had been…mesmerizing. Maybe it had been her hair, half-braided. Maybe it was her outfit: a loose plaid-printed button-up, completely undone, with a simple gray tank top underneath and a pair of worn jeans. She’d looked good, and she knew she did, just based on the way she’d smirked (small but confident) at catching Scylla eyeing her, before she’d rolled her eyes at Scylla, nodding at the pool table as if to say “can you fucking believe?”

Scylla’d quirked an eyebrow to respond that no, she couldn’t. And she tilted her head, which had Raelle doing it in return, the smirk that had no right to be as sexy as it had been growing lazily across her features as she made no secret of scanning Scylla up and down, and, well…

A shiver had run down Scylla’s spine. She’d been after a…different type of conquest that night, but she wasn’t going to be picky. Especially not with someone that beautiful looking at her like that. 

Raelle had approached Scylla, because Scylla never approached people. 

“What brings you to this bar all alone?” Raelle had asked, placing her beer next to Scylla’s cocktail and leaning against the bar, smirk still in place. 

“I could ask you the same question,” Scylla said, just loud enough to be heard over the pumping music, leaning in to make sure that the confident stranger could hear her

“Got stood up,” she answered, though she didn’t look the least bit broken up about that, “Thinking of calling the girl to thank her for that, now,”

She gave Scylla another appreciative once-over, and the thrill it sent through Scylla was not lost on her. 

Oh, she liked this one. 

“And you?” Raelle had returned the question, grinning in a way that implied that she knew exactly what she was doing to Scylla, which just served to intrigue Scylla more. Who was this woman, and where had she come from? 

Scylla sent her a smile, sure to turn her mysterious charm up to eleven as she grabbed her drink and took a sip, never removing her eyes from the smoldering crystal-blues that watched her. She put the drink down and finally settled on an answer, “I’m hunting,”

“Ah,” Raelle had said, leaning back with both elbows on the bar to look out over the rest of the place, as though looking for what Scylla could possibly be hunting. She leaned over, pointedly keeping her eyes out on the dancefloor and beyond, “And have you found your prey?”

She looked at Scylla, then, clearly aware of the effect her words would have, and she was entirely correct.

Scylla let her gaze hungrily bore into Raelle’s. “I think I have,”

Raelle had her pressed to the wall outside the bar, her hands down Scylla’s pants, her fingers working against her and inside of her, in record time. Scylla had already been wet in the bar from the moment Raelle had approached her with a level of swagger that had been so hot it should be illegal, so it wasn’t a shock that she was ready for Raelle when Raelle had taken her by the hand (after paying both her tab and Scylla’s, because she was a goddamned gentlewoman) to lead her out of the bar. 

To be fair, it had been Scylla who had pulled them into the alley right after they left, pulling her close to hungrily make out with her. Because Scylla was used to taking the lead: used to taking what she wanted from her conquests. But she’d been pleasantly, completely surprised when Raelle had taken over, pressing Scylla into the wall and hungrily kissing her, domineering in a way that Scylla hadn’t allowed anyone to be with her in a while, and, well…

Color her intrigued. And definitely turned on beyond belief, happily giving up the control she was so used to wielding in favor of letting herself be taken by this complete stranger. She certainly wasn’t going to complain about how they’d ended up in that position, Raelle fucking Scylla against a brick wall, tucked into the side alley. 

Ideal? No. But god, it had been so hot, and Scylla wasn’t going to complain. She had done far worse things in a dingy alley, anyway. 

Raelle moved inside of her with practiced and bold strokes, pace strong and insistent, and with it she had Scylla gasping in a matter of minutes, on the edge far faster than she’d expected, but she didn’t even care as she tugged at Raelle’s hair, breathing heavily into her neck as she came.

“Fuck,” Raelle had muttered, dropping her forehead onto Scylla’s shoulder. “Sorry,”

Scylla had let out a breathy laugh, shivering as Raelle withdrew from her, “Don’t you dare apologize,” she husked out. “But, fuck,”

Raelle pulled away and smirked at her. “I’m usually a bit better about getting women to my actual bed, since that’s, you know. A little more comfortable than a brick wall,” she muttered, laughing, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t control myself,”

“Mm, definitely don’t ever control yourself,” Scylla said seriously, coming down from her orgasm. “You should be proud you can get someone off against a wall like that,”

“I’m even better in bed,”

“I’m going to need proof,” Scylla had said, not even remotely near joking.

Raelle’s eyes flashed, her grin hungry, and, well…

Scylla hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep that night, but she was not complaining. 

There was a fire in Raelle that was…intriguing, to Scylla. An unflinching drive, and it was…well, it was attractive. Scylla didn’t tend to make a habit of one-night stands: she got what she needed from them, and sometimes would even let it happen a few more times, with the clear understanding that it was just sex. Her bed partners were just that: bed partners. Bodies to keep her warm.

The lucky ones.

But Raelle was…different. Something about her was intriguing, so Scylla let herself be entertained and endeared by Raelle’s presence. Despite herself…the sex was good, and Raelle was gorgeous, and so she kept ending up in Raelle’s bed.

From there, it’d grown beyond her control, and she had let it, and she wasn’t even mad about it. Raelle had just…relentlessly been there. At first, for sex. For stress relief, to blow off some steam. Raelle hadn’t even flinched, at first,when Scylla had let a bit of her taste for...more unsavory types of sex, loose. She didn’t let it out often, usually only with one-night stands who she knew could handle it, and even then, she usually never went as far as she had with Porter. Really, only Porter had gotten to see that side of her in all of its extended glory: hungry for control and power and all too willing to take it. And Raelle hadn’t been immediately frightened by what little of it Scylla’d allowed through, seeming to thoroughly enjoy the more demanding streak that Scylla seldom allowed herself to fully unchain. And that, truly, as her feelings developed…she no longer wanted to unchain.

Raelle herself was a fairly open person, both in the bedroom and outside of it, though she was never quick to offer information about herself that she seemed to think would scare Scylla off, which Scylla appreciated. If Scylla asked, Raelle would answer, but she seemed to understand that Scylla was not one for deep connections or for stupid pleasantries, which honestly, Scylla had always found incredibly tedious.

Still, despite her best efforts to allow Scylla that space…it slowly closed. Scylla learned a lot about Raelle just from the times she decided to stay at Raelle’s apartment for the night. From the way that Raelle chose to decorate her space alone, Scylla learned almost too much: Raelle sometimes using the decorations as an excuse to slowly open herself up to Scylla, in such a subtle way that Scylla genuinely didn’t notice just how…attached, she’d allowed herself to become to Raelle.

And Raelle was truly…surprising, in a lot of ways. Despite being such an open and honest presence in Scylla’s life, she consistently managed to keep Scylla on her toes and that…that was no easy feat.

She knew she was a goner as soon as she accidentally opened up to Raelle about her parents.

Scylla didn’t talk about her parents. Ever. 

But…Raelle had a small collection of postcards that, in a bout of insomnia, Scylla had lightly thumbed through. She hadn’t meant to intrude, and she supposed that it said a lot about their relationship that when Raelle found her, she didn’t yell or get upset: instead she wrapped her arms around Scylla from behind and rested her chin on her shoulder, looking down at the postcards. 

“From my mom,” she said quietly. “They’re…I mean, it’s not the last I have of her. But they were the last things she sent me. She, um…she died. She was also in the Army. Died on deployment, in a freak accident. It was a while ago. I was seventeen, and I’d already enlisted to join so I couldn’t…I couldn’t get out of it. Didn’t really want to, either. Military service runs in my family. I wasn’t looking forward to it, after her death, but…” Raelle had shaken her head, continuing a moment later, “But I wanted to make her proud. Sometimes, when I still miss her…I like to read them,” she’d sounded sheepish, but Scylla had still felt the sadness in her words, and it had tugged at her heartstrings.

“My parents were murdered when I was twelve,” she said, and she’d felt her eyes widen in surprise. She…she hadn’t meant to say that out loud…

Scylla had felt a coldness run through her, a sour taste suddenly in her mouth. That…that had been too much. She’d said too much. She never told people that her parents were murdered. She never said the word “murdered” anywhere in the same sentence with her parents. If she had to give details, she always said that they had died when she was young. She certainly didn’t open up to people about that…about that trauma. That was hers, and hers alone, and it didn’t belong to anyone else, and no one else was allowed to know it. To truly know the darkness that lurked within her. The true extent of how damaged she was. 

It was bad enough, mentioning that she lost her parents when she was young. The last time she’d mentioned it, in a room of first-year medical residents, the entire dynamic in the room had shifted. People had this…way, about them, that she absolutely hated. They got uncomfortable and they put on a sympathetic face and they said that they were sorry and Scylla had to accept it, saying “It’s okay, it was a long time ago,” as though it hadn’t been the single most traumatic thing to have ever happened to her. 

It’d always pissed her off, yet she’d found her rage in that moment…oddly muted, around Raelle. Quiet, like a beast stirring from slumber, only to roll over and fall back asleep. A whisper, a presence, in the back of her mind, but not…not all-consuming or slow-burning, as her rage could sometimes be. Instead…instead, she’d been surprisingly calm, even with the heavy words hanging in the air between them. 

She’d frozen, because she knew the words were a lot. Too much. And she knew how people reacted, and she knew that people treated her differently after they learned, and she found that, despite herself, she didn’t want to feel that shift with Raelle. She didn’t want to even think of Raelle being weird around her all of a sudden for mentioning the fact that her parents were dead (let alone that they’d been murdered), and she very nearly regretted the words, until -

“…shit,” Raelle said, the surprise clear in her voice. “Fuck, Scyl…that’s pretty fucked,” which…it was. She wasn’t wrong. But there was no odd silence. No weird pause. Raelle shifted her arms slightly around Scylla’s waist, and…had left it at that. No other words. No other questions. No other statements. No awkwardness. 

And suddenly, it was warmth that was spreading through Scylla. An odd warmth that she hadn’t felt…

Goddess, in decades. If she’d ever felt it at all. 

And, really, despite the words perhaps not being the most eloquent…they were the right ones. Raelle wasn’t one for words, necessarily. Scylla had already learned that about her. She was an effective communicator (especially in bed), but flowery language wasn’t her strong suit, which Scylla honestly appreciated. She liked how simply…honest, and frank, Raelle was. There was no bullshit, no beating around the bush. She didn’t hide her emotions and it was…it was so refreshing. Raelle never pretended to feel, or to be, anything she was not, and Scylla appreciated it more than words could describe.

“It is fucked,” she acquiesced quietly, before quickly adding, “I barely remember it, now.”

It wasn’t true. That memory was seared into her brain, but she’d made new ones to superimpose over it. With the new ones – new images of gore, of which, she’d had all the control – she could at least sleep at night. 

She did remember it, all too clearly, but Scylla didn’t want to take Raelle down that dark road. Certainly not then, when they were still in the beginning stages of their relationship. She said it to not have them fall into the rabbit hole that was her past, and Raelle, ever perceptive and receptive to Scylla’s subtleties, seemed to hear in her voice that she was not open to talking more about it, because Scylla felt Raelle nod and say “Okay,”

Scylla couldn’t help but lay her arms over Raelle’s as they continued to circle her waist, surprisingly soothed by the quiet understanding.

“Thank you,”

To the average observer, she doubted that would have been considered opening up. But for Scylla…she had almost just bared her soul. She never told people how young she had been, let alone the fact that her parents were murdered.

And, despite herself…she found that she had to hold back the urge to tell Raelle more. More details. But she’d held her tongue, because it didn’t feel appropriate, in their quiet moment, to ruin it with “My parents were murdered right in front of me, and I saw them bleed out on the floor, gasping for breath through their own bodily fluids, and all I could do was watch.”

And so she hadn’t. 

But Scylla’d known, in that moment – just the fact that she wanted to, even if for only a moment: just the fact that she had the urge to tell Raelle, and that she wanted to open up to her, and that she wanted to trust her – that she well and truly had lost control of her “one-night stand”. When she hadn’t been paying attention, it had suddenly become much, much more to her. 

The feeling had surprised Scylla so much that she’d stood in contemplative silence, in Raelle’s embrace, while Raelle told her stories of her mother, and Scylla listened intently. 

Scylla sighed to herself in her car, staring at the message again. 

_< 3_

The knife twisted in her gut.

\---

Scylla hadn’t gotten home until almost midnight the night before, after Raelle had texted her that heart, so the sound of the door opening just past five the next evening had Raelle looking up from her phone, surprised. She hadn’t been expecting Scylla for at least a few more hours, so when she poked her head into the living room and smiled at Raelle, Raelle felt her heart skip a beat.

“You’re home early,” Raelle said, before hastily adding, “Not that I’m complaining!”

Scylla chuckled, coming forward into the living room and leaning down for a kiss, which Raelle happily gave her. “I managed to escape. Graves said she’d take over my part of the project for the night. I’ll likely owe her in the future but I don’t mind, because I wanted to come home. I missed you,” Scylla kissed her again. 

“Mm, I missed you too,” Raelle smiled, genuinely, sitting back on the couch. “Take off your coat. Stay a while,” she patted the couch cushion next to her. 

Scylla straightened, sending her a mock salute that had Raelle rolling her eyes. “Yes ma’am,” she clicked her heels. 

Raelle gently kicked her on the ass as she turned around to hang her coat up in their foyer. “Dork,” she muttered, rolling her eyes and locking her phone. Scylla laughed as she re-entered the living room, flopping down on the couch and curling up to Raelle, kissing her temple.

“Did you miss me?” Scylla repeated, joking, as she settled her head on Raelle’s shoulder, looking down at Raelle’s black phone screen. 

“Yeah, always,” Raelle murmured, “Even when you just leave to hang your coat up.” She smiled despite herself, both of their reflections smiling back at them on the phone screen, which had Scylla giggling.

“I missed you too,” Scylla murmured, shifting to kiss Raelle again. 

Raelle hummed, happy to reciprocate.

Scylla pulled away, gazing up at her with so much love in her eyes that it physically took Raelle’s breath away, for a moment. She wrapped an arm around Scylla’s shoulders, pulling her closer, and Scylla scooted further into Raelle’s side. 

“I’m happy you’re home early,” Raelle said suddenly, and Scylla shifted so that she could properly look at her. Raelle sent her a sheepish nod. “I just…god, Scyl, this is gonna sound so petty…”

Scylla furrowed her brow, but looked encouraging, waiting for Raelle to continue.

Raelle bit her lip. Maybe she shouldn’t say it…

But, no, she should. They hadn’t made it their three years by ignoring what they were feeling. And Scylla was her partner. She had a right to know. Even if Scylla wasn’t affording Raelle the same courtesy.

“I just…I feel like…I know you have that new fieldwork project,” she prefaced, which got an eyebrow raise, “And I know that means you’re at the hospital and I know that that’s just what the job is. I know that,”

“Oh-kay…” Scylla said, furrowing her brow even more in confusion. 

Raelle took in a deep breath. “But…like. Normally you know that I’d miss you but…not like this. This is almost like…” she scrunched her nose. “Forget it. It’s stupid,” Raelle sighed, frustrated. She didn’t know where she was going with that train of thought. She didn’t know how to articulate what she wanted to say, and it was frustrating.

Scylla straightened, turning on the couch so that she was fully facing Raelle, concern on her features. She reached forward and grabbed one of Raelle’s hands in her own, leaning on the back of the couch with her other arm, elbow up, hand on her temple. Her “listening” pose: the one she used when she was truly invested in what Raelle had to say. 

Not that she had any pose that indicated otherwise, but that pose in particular…that pose was specifically for serious conversations. 

“Raelle,” she said, sounding almost…pained. “It’s not stupid. I don’t know what it is, but if it’s bothering you, I want you to tell me,” she looked concerned

Raelle sighed. “I just…between your project and just…um. Just knowing that Porter’s…just…Porter…it really has me on edge. I feel like…I mean, maybe you haven’t noticed, but I feel like I’ve been…more annoyed than usual. And just…I’m sorry if I’m sort of like…acting out on that, I guess?”

Scylla squinted at her, “‘Acting out on that’ how?”

Raelle sighed. “I don’t know. If I’ve been acting more possessive or insistent or impatient or something. Or weirder. I know I’ve been a little weirder…”

Scylla sent her a soft smile, “I think we’ve both been a bit weird lately, Raelle. I mean,” she ran a hand through her hair, sighing, “Porter was…unexpected. Beyond unexpected. So like…it’s normal he has you on edge. I think it’s normal to be a bit weird,” Scylla shook her head, “I think we’ve both been weird, but…but besides that night you saw him at the bar…just know that, to me anyway, you’ve seemed fine? A little on edge but nothing extreme. And, I’ll have you know that you haven’t acted possessive at all,” she frowned, “Which, truly, I’m disappointed,”

Raelle couldn’t help but snort, rolling her eyes. 

“You know I like your possessive streak,” Scylla said cutely, tilting her head to the side. “I like knowing I’m yours, and that you want everyone to know it. Is it healthy? Eh” Scylla shrugged, “Is it hot? Definitely,” her grin was criminally sexy, evil in its filthy implications.

Raelle laughed despite herself, shaking her head, “Stop, Scyl. I’m serious,”

Scylla shrugged, “So am I, Raelle.”

“Yeah, I just mean…I just,” she sighed, frustrated once more. She fidgeted, flipping her hair, and she started toying with Scylla’s hand, still held in hers. “I hate…I hate feeling like this. Because I know I don’t have to. But just…you not being home, and him being here…it’s all getting to me. And I hate that, because I know I can trust you-”

Except she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to bring that up. She didn’t want to look at Scylla and ask and see the answer, because she already knew…she probably wasn’t going to like it. And she didn’t want that, because she didn’t want to start a fight. She missed Scylla. She missed how they had been before Porter had ruined everything. Before he had showed up and revealed all the cracks in their foundation that Raelle had been all too happy to ignore.

Something shifted in Scylla – something that Raelle couldn’t describe, but she saw it as it came and disappeared, all in less than a second, and it did nothing for that slowly building churn she’d had in her stomach for the last few days. 

“-but I don’t trust him. And seeing you so much less…it’s just kind of getting to me,”

Scylla’s expression softened, almost looking…guilty?

“I’m sorry, Raelle,” she said, biting her lip, “I…didn’t know that you’d been feeling like that…”

“I mean…you haven’t exactly been around a lot for me to tell you,” she pointed out. Again, she refrained from saying what she really wanted to say: that obviously Scylla didn’t know. They hadn’t talked, at all, about Porter, excepting that one fight. They hadn’t talked about what his presence had meant to them, or was doing to them, and while that was partially on Raelle…mostly, it was on Scylla. Because Raelle had tried to talk to her about it, and Scylla had wormed her way out of it, taking Raelle to bed and thinking that would just…make her forget.

But it hadn’t. It hadn’t. 

Scylla hung her head, shaking it slowly while she acquiesced. “That’s…that’s true. Thank you, though. For telling me now,” she leaned forward, taking both of Raelle’s hands in hers. “And don’t…don’t beat yourself up over your feelings, Raelle. Please,” Scylla looked at her with pleading eyes. “You’re allowed to be upset, you know?”

“Yeah, I do,” Raelle said, indignantly. She let out a sigh, quick to recognize that her temper was rising. “I just…I feel like I’m on eggshells, when it comes to you…and talking to you about him. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Scyl. We haven’t talked about him once: not really. About how you’re feeling about him being here.”

Scylla pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing for only a moment. “There’s…not really anything to talk about, Raelle,” she let out a sigh, running a hand through her hair again. “I feel like a broken record, but I mean it: I don’t feel anything. I’m annoyed he’s here. I’m annoyed he’s causing all these problems. I’m annoyed that he’s getting to you, because he has no right to. I’m annoyed, and that’s the only feeling,” she fixed Raelle with a serious look, then, “I promise.”

Raelle wasn’t sure if it was the truth, Scylla’s voice tired: annoyed, a bit, by the conversation. But Raelle couldn’t just continue to leave it alone. Even so…the words were reassuring. At least the words were being spoken. It was something, and Raelle was desperate for that.

“And I’m annoyed at this project, if we really want to get into all that I’m feeling,” Scylla added, “I’m not exactly thrilled about not getting to see you a lot, either. You think I want to be stuck with all those doctors, having to talk and teach all those residents? It’s my own personal version of hell: you know that I want to be a medical examiner so that I can work with the dead, not the living,” she rolled her eyes, “The living are exhausting. You’re the only living being I actually want to speak to. I miss you every time I have to go in, and knowing I’ll be in for way longer than normal makes it even harder to do. You have no idea how much I want to just…be here, at home, with you. Just the two of us. No bodies. No Porter.”

“No Porter sounds fantastic,” Raelle muttered. 

Scylla smiled, though something was…off about it. Almost…saddened, though that wasn’t quite it. Bittersweet. “Well. For what it’s worth…I don’t think he will be around much longer. And then, with any luck, my project will end, and we can go back to normal and put it all behind us.”

“God, I’d really like that,” Raelle said earnestly, and Scylla’s smile turned fond, reaching forward to stroke Raelle’s cheek affectionately.

“Me too, beautiful,”

\---

Scylla changed Porter’s IV bag on his fourth day, twisting the tube of the old bag off and screwing in the new one, hanging it up.

“Have I mentioned this is fucked up?” Porter grumbled. He was weaker, which was almost…sad, to see. But two days of no solid food would do that to a person. 

He continued, “You ever have hunger pains so strong that you nearly pass out? They had us go through something similar, at training,”

“So you’re used to it, then,” Scylla deadpanned, and Porter shook his head.

“You don’t get used to that kind of shit, Scylla,”

She walked back to her stool, turning to face Porter. 

“I know,” she said quietly. After her parents were murdered…she hadn’t known what to do. She’d been…in shock. She knew that she should call the police, but she’d been young. Too young. Twelve years old, locked in a closet for her own safety, fighting every instinct in her to scream, lest she be discovered as well. Frozen in place, watching through the slats in the closet door as both of them bled out right in front of her, gurgling for breath through turrets of blood as it spilled from their arteries. 

In her worst nightmares, she still could smell the coppery rotting smell of coagulated and spoiled blood as bacteria did its work. The only thing that had quelled that particular brand of hell was the smell of fresh blood as she’d stabbed a man twenty-four times on a rocky beach with the jagged glass of his own broken beer bottle, before making sure he was dead. The smell of fresh blood had eroded the memory.

In all actuality, she didn’t know how many days she was in that closet until a neighbor came by and saw the carnage. Scylla’d been rushed to a hospital and hooked up to an IV for being malnourished. She’d spent days unable to eat: unable to keep anything down. 

She knew hunger pain. It was terrible. 

“And you let others go through it,” Porter said, derisive, almost snorting in disgust. 

She shrugged, “It’s a side-effect. It’s either that, or sitting in their own shit, and also, me getting just a little too close for my comfort to feed them. One is much more sanitary, much easier to clean up, and much lower-risk for me all around.” She raised an eyebrow. 

Porter shook his head, sighing. “What happened to being confident in your knots?”

“Oh, the knots are fine,” she assured him, “But anytime I’m close to someone, the risk increases that they’ll surprise me, and I don’t like surprises. As you’ve come to find out,”

“You know, if you didn’t kill people, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of this at all,” Porter muttered. 

“Yes, Porter, I confess that the thought had crossed my mind,” Scylla rolled her eyes. 

“So why keep doing it?” he asked. He actually looked…genuinely curious, his head tilted to the side. 

Scylla bit her lip, contemplating. Did she tell him that she’d stopped, actually? Did she tell him that she…really didn’t fucking know why? She had a lot of reasons why. Something to do. Something to feel. The only way to feel anything but anger for an extended period of time, until she’d met Raelle? Something about the whole process fascinated her? That she liked the connections she made with people, like this? That for the longest time, she’d just…wanted to. 

“Habit, I suppose,” she settled on, with a half-shrug.

Porter laughed, disbelieving. “Habit?!”

She sighed. “I don’t know what else to tell you, Porter. This…this stopped it. This stopped…everything.”

“…‘Everything’? Like what?”

Scylla shook her head. “All the rage,”

He snorted, “Could have fooled me. You didn’t act any different after you killed that guy on the beach,”

“Didn’t I?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Didn’t seem happier? Better mood than normal? Chill?”

Porter stared at her, furrowing his brow, as though digging through the memories. “No. I…yes. You seemed happier, but I always just…I assumed you’d smoked something good, the night before. You weren’t…you weren’t calmer. You were crazier, if anything. Crazier but…” he tilted his head, “Not…meaner…”

Scylla nodded. “I felt high as a fucking kite, Porter,” she said seriously. “You know…you know when you just…you hit a point where you can’t take it anymore? Where something is going to give, and unless you release it, you’ll…” she shook her head. She didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t let her violence out that night. She may have kept it bottled until she did something far worse. 

As though there was something worse than murder. 

Maybe she would have killed more people in one go.

Though, to be fair…she’d gone on a bit of a spree, after that first one. Two more had followed within a week. Another, within two months after she’d moved clear across the country.

Porter hung his head. “I…yeah…” he said, quietly. “I do know that feeling, but fuck, Scylla, I would never,” he looked up at her, “never, take it out on someone else, I-”

“Obviously you wouldn’t, Porter. Because it was clear, in our relationship, that I liked hurting you. And some part of you liked it. Some part of you liked that punishment. You liked that I liked to hurt you, because then you didn’t have to do it. You didn’t have to admit that you just wanted to suffer. That’s all you’ve ever known, and you need it. You need to suffer. You need to hurt yourself. Or you let someone else make you bleed, so that way it’s technically not self-destructive behavior. Because if someone else does it, that means you don’t need professional help: because someone else is hurting you. It’s not the same as self-destruction, except it is, because you let it happen. You did then, and clearly, you do now,”

Porter eyed her, surprisingly not flinching away from her harsh words. He sighed, “I liked you hurting me because…I liked the attention. It was the only time you looked at me like I was worth something,”

Scylla laughed, the sound hollow: disbelieving. Was he serious?!

Goddess, they were both fucked up beyond all repair. Her, for liking to hurt other people. And him, for being so pathetic as to fall in love with a woman who would have enjoyed killing him. Who took cruel pleasure in hurting him, in inflicting pain and watching it dance in his eyes. 

She’d burned him with lit cigarettes. She’d scratched him when she’d tried to make good on her promise to tear his throat out. She wanted to do it, too: digging her nails into the supple flesh around his larynx and leaving bloody marks. She wanted to hurt him, because he let her. He let her take all of her rage out on him, and he never fought back, and that had done nothing but serve to make her angrier. 

It’d been a very vicious cycle.

“Porter. That’s so unhealthy,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“Yeah, somewhere in there I realized that being your punching bag wasn’t exactly going to win me any mental health awards,” he huffed. 

“But you never left,” she said quietly. 

He shook his head, as best he could given his restraints. “No,” he swallowed. “I never did. I stupidly thought that maybe…that maybe if you were able to take all your frustrations out on me, you’d get over it all. You’d stop. You’d realize that all that violence did was hurt people.”

“That was the point, Porter. I _wanted_ to hurt people. I wanted them to feel the pain I felt. And you wanted to internalize all your pain. All your trauma. You wanted to be punished, and I was all too happy to punish you,”

“The perfect pair,” Porter huffed out a laugh. He looked up at the ceiling, then. “I tried to commit suicide, when you left,” he practically whispered.

Despite herself…the words panged something inside Scylla. She couldn’t say she was surprised, however.

“Do you know why I left, Porter?” Scylla asked quietly. 

Porter sighed, a heavy, leaden sigh. “Because you hated me. I knew that, Scylla, but you were still with me. You still gave me purpose, and I loved you so much for that. You understood me in a way that others didn’t. You didn’t care about using me. You didn’t care about my trauma. You let me just…do what I needed to do to live, day to day. To survive. And you always went along with my stupid ideas or plans. You were tough as nails, and the coolest, most brutal girl I’d ever met. I still remember when you beat that dealer into a bloody pulp when he tried to give me some contaminated shit that you’d seen him dealing. No one had ever stood up for me like that. Had cared for me, like that. And then, I was yours, and you were cruel to me but you were even worse to anyone who tried to touch me. I was yours and I felt…seen. You understood me in a way that no one else ever had. You knew the foster system, you knew the shit I’d been through. You took no shit, and I admired that so much about you, because it was a quality I didn’t have. I fell in love with you so easily,”

Scylla shook her head. “I wasn’t even kind to you, Porter,”

“Not near the end, but you were there. That was more than most people ever had been. You stuck with me through all kinds of shit. And I don’t know…for a time, we were thick as thieves. For a time, at the beginning…you weren’t as bad. For a time…I think…I thought,” he amended, “that we were in love. Before you started taking your out anger on me. But I was already so in love with you at that point. So when you left it just…it hit me. That you actually hated me, and I realized you had a right to, so I tried to end it,”

Scylla sighed, “I didn’t leave you because I hated you, Porter. I left because I woke up one night…I was fresh off my third body. Not long after. And I realized how easy it would be to just…add you to my list. Just…cut your throat and watch you bleed out, right there on our bed. And I didn’t want to do that,” she whispered. “Partially because…because you were too close to me. I would immediately be caught. And I didn’t want that. But…also…” she bit her lip. “A…a part of me didn’t want to kill you. You…I never loved you, Porter, but it would be a lie to say you meant nothing to me. You probably prevented me from killing a lot more people. Some part of me knew that killing you would be my undoing, in more ways than one. So I left,”

Porter stared, before, surprisingly, laughing. “We’re so fucked up, aren’t we?”

She couldn’t help but crack a smile at that, despite herself. “A bit, yes.”

“So what’s changed now then, Scylla?” he asked, letting his head drop back against the beam. “Why do you want to kill me now?”

“I don’t,” Scylla said, suddenly serious, and that seemed to surprise Porter. “I will, but I don’t want to, Porter. I…I was done with this, if you can believe it…”

“I can’t,” Porter said flatly. 

Scylla snorted, “That’s…fair,”

“Seriously, Scylla. I’ve seen all that you’ve done, you know? You never stopped killing. You moved clear across the country, and your style morphed, but you never stopped. Just took some cross-referencing between social media and local newspapers, and it wasn’t hard to find you.”

Scylla stared, suddenly not in a bonding mood. “You really took the time to just sit down and fucking stalk me, huh Porter? Why? What have you gained from that?” she indicated the room around them. “Why did you even come here?”

He paled, as though realizing he probably shouldn’t have reminded her. Still, he clenched his jaw and faced her. “I…wanted to know if my suspicions were true. I wanted to get back at you for all that you put me through after you left. I wanted…” he sighed. “It doesn’t matter now,”

He wanted, what? To blackmail her with all of his “evidence”?

Scylla snorted. “You’re even more pathetic than I remember,” she said, scathing. 

“Says the serial killer who says she’s ‘done’.” He sneered back. 

“I _was_ done, Porter. But then you showed up, and you got in the way and stuck your nose where it didn’t belong. Then you threatened to take the one good thing that I have in my life from me,” she leaned forward, eyes flashing dangerously, “You want to know why I’m going to kill you? Because if I don’t, you’ll ruin everything. You already have her doubting me. You could ruin me, ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to get. Ruin all the hard work that it’s taken to get me to where I am. If you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and disappeared when you were told to, I wouldn’t have to do this, but no. You never did know when to just shut up. So,” she leaned back, opening her arms, “Here we are,”

“Oh, don’t pin this on me, Scylla,” he retorted with malice. “I didn’t force you to do any of this. You chose to confront me at the hotel. _You_ decided that I was a risk. _You_ decided that me trying to get a rise out of you somehow translated to me having evidence of your crimes, and you didn’t even hesitate. I didn’t force you to decide that maybe you weren’t so done, after all. Face it: you just want to kill me,” he said flatly.

“It _is_ your fault though, Porter. You could have just kept your mouth shut. You could have just left. But you kept pushing and pushing and pushing. It doesn’t matter if you have evidence: your mere presence has caused so many fucking problems already, so you really left me no choice, and you don’t get to fault me for that,” she bared her teeth. 

“You always have a choice,” he set his chin defiantly.

Scylla rolled her eyes, not even bothering to say “spare me”, much as she well and truly wanted to, and they fell into a silence in which they did nothing but glare at each other. Which wasn’t unusual. Scylla folded her arms, and waited. Porter would break in a little while, and they would repeat the cycle: talk, one of them would get upset, and then they would return to silence, until Scylla grew tired of their game and left.

To be repeated the next day, into perpetuity until she finally ended his life.

Whenever that would be…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scylla amuses herself so much with her double-entrendres about being a serial killer, we stan honestly. Let's see if you guys can catch them all, there are a lot. She tries to skate by with lying by telling as little of a lie as possible, which leads to a lot of words that mean one thing to Raelle but aren't technically a lie as they mean the truth to Scylla. Clever lil' serial killing murder bean...
> 
> Also, how we feelin' about that meet-cute? 
> 
> Also like, Porter and Scylla really were not good for each other, huh...
> 
> Okay! Anyway! I do hope you guys enjoyed, drop a line if so, some of you have your galaxy brains engaged which, honestly: amazing omg. Also like...I know I've told you to buckle up about seven times now but seriously, keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times because we're almost done clacking to the top of the angst roller coaster, and get ready for the plunge 'cause that's when the real fun begins... 👀👀


	8. A Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can y'all even believe that, with this chapter, we're at the half way through the fic?! I’m not even gonna lie, I don’t think any of you are ready for this chapter (not to mention the next one!), but I also know y’all have been waiting with bated breath for shit to hit the fan so...be careful what you wish for, I guess? ;) 
> 
> Anyway, no warnings for this chapter except get your tissues ready, I guess, ‘cause like...the real angst is coming...
> 
> Okay enough teasing, onto the chapter!

Raelle hadn’t seen Scylla in nearly a week, and though that wasn’t necessarily unusual…well, it was. 

Their jobs were sometimes at odd hours. There would sometimes be days where they only saw each other in passing, or when one of them came home after the other had gone to bed. 

But they didn’t usually happen all in a row. Not since Scylla’s last year of residency had ended. Sure, she still sometimes had long hours, and maybe they wouldn’t see each other for a day or two, but…rarely, since starting her fellowship, had such long absences lasted the whole week. 

And while it had been known to happen, that Scylla would pull doubles…usually, it was Raelle doing them. But…that was part of Raelle’s issue, actually: the hours Scylla was gone  _ weren’t _ doubles. She left at six in the morning, if not earlier, and would come back anywhere between 5pm or 7pm or 10pm, or, in the case of that one night when her project had first started: after midnight. 

So she wasn’t pulling doubles. Her hours weren’t consistent. On top of that, she’d come home that one day around four in the afternoon. Her hours were all over the place, and it didn’t make any sense, and Raelle hated that. Raelle hated that she’d made sure to pay close attention to Scylla’s leave and arrival times. She hated that she felt like she needed to. Something was very, very off, and Raelle didn’t like to realize that, because…because it meant facing things that she just didn’t want to face.

And it wasn’t like she would have cared if Scylla had asked for a bit of space, if she’d felt like she needed it. It was…well, it was hard to believe Scylla was at work the whole time she said she was, so just what the hell was she doing? Raelle knew that sometimes, Scylla could be one for solitude, and would take time if she needed it. But she always talked to Raelle about it beforehand. 

And so no, not seeing Scylla for a day or two wasn’t unusual.

But they were approaching several days – in a row – where Scylla would kiss Raelle goodbye in the morning before the sun had come up, and would kiss her hello in the evening when the sun was already down. 

Raelle tried not to let it get to her: it could be anything, after all. It could be extra conferences, it could be consultations with other medical examiners, it could be just showing the residents how special cases were treated and carried out. Hell, it could just be that she took a long nap between shifts, for all Raelle knew. But her paranoia from that second night alone had not subsided in the slightest. In fact, with each passing day…it festered inside of her, growing. 

Five days of weird hours wasn’t exactly unheard of, no, but there were…extenuating circumstances, this time. During Scylla’s residency, five days had been more common: every once in a while, it would happen where they just didn’t coincide for a while, but there was usually an explanation. Scylla was on-call. Raelle had a thing with her unit. Scylla got a difficult or high-priority case. Scylla went out with her fellow residents (though she usually invited Raelle, who nearly always declined: Izadora kind of scared her, and the rest of the residents would speak medical speak about their cases that just…went way over Raelle’s head. She always felt weird, in the presence of so many people who were such close friends with death). Scylla just being in a social mood and going out for drinks with coworkers, which sometimes happened. 

But Raelle hadn’t heard about any social engagements. Nothing about “Necro-dinners”, as her department referred to the times the pathology residents got together. No celebratory drinks for having an interesting case with the fieldwork. The fieldwork which had, apparently, become a bit more of a project than originally thought, though Raelle hadn’t heard anything about a high-profile case from Anacostia.

Not that Anacostia would tell her about one, because law enforcement, but still. 

It nagged at Raelle. Those extenuating circumstances – with dirty blonde hair and dull blue eyes and that spelled a lot of trouble and was kind of a fucking dick – especially had her teetering on a razor’s edge.

The thought that Scylla could possibly be with Porter had become harder and harder to push down or away. Harder to ignore. Harder to make up excuses for why it wasn’t, or couldn’t, be true. 

She would still try and think of them, though: reminding herself that Scylla would never, ever do that to her, let alone right there, under her nose. She knew Scylla enough – or, well, she thought she did – to know that Scylla wouldn’t betray her like that. Not in such an unsubtle and frankly, insulting manner. Like she thought Raelle was stupid.

Scylla wouldn’t do that. And it wasn’t like Scylla had to account for every minute she spent away from Raelle. Hell, sometimes Raelle liked to just hop on her motorcycle and ride. It calmed her down, cleared her head, and she knew that Scylla did that sometimes in the car, too. 

Just…she usually mentioned it. She would take pictures of mushrooms when she would stop at random spots to just…exist, and she would show the photos to Raelle after, eyes alight with happiness that Raelle let her enthusiastically share this weird habit. 

It wasn’t like she needed to know where Scylla was all the time, because she loved and trusted Scylla, but her gut refused to stop churning, and if there was one thing Raelle had learned in all of her years of living…it was to trust her gut. 

She hated that it was telling her that Scylla was betraying her. 

By the sixth day – in which Scylla woke Raelle with a kiss at 5:45am and whispered in her ear, “Good morning, gorgeous,”, Raelle felt her stomach flip but forced down the clash of emotions at realizing it would be yet another day where she probably wouldn’t see Scylla. 

“Mmm,” Raelle murmured, trying to let herself enjoy the affections of her girlfriend – the love of her life – as she half-lay on Raelle in bed, peppering her face with light kisses. “Why are you awake?” she groaned, voice hoarse from sleep.

“Early call today,” Scylla said in Raelle’s ear. Her hot breath made Raelle squirm, heat shooting down her body despite herself. She had sensitive ears, and Scylla knew that. 

Scylla chuckled lowly, knowing full well the effect she was having. 

“Again?” Raelle whined despite herself. 

Sue her. She missed her girlfriend. 

Scylla sighed, “Again,” she said, at least having the decency to sound reluctant about it.

“Tell Izadora she can wait” Raelle grumbled, twisting her body so that she could properly grab Scylla, rolling half on top of her and kissing her, mouth hot with need. 

God, did she ever miss her girlfriend. She missed her, but more than that…she wanted her. The last time they’d had sex had been the day she’d gotten her fieldwork, and while Raelle was loath to admit it…a part of her was feeling possessive. Desperate. Scylla could very well be lying to her. Scylla could very well be secretly meeting with her ex, using her project as an excuse, and Raelle didn’t like the paranoia but it clawed at her. It made her want to grab Scylla and press her into the bed and remind her who she was actually with. It made her want to hold her down and ravish her until Scylla was crying out her name, and while Raelle knew that that wasn’t necessarily healthy behavior…she couldn’t help it. 

She loved Scylla and she missed her and she was feeling moody and possessive at the thought of Scylla with someone else, and the mere idea of it – of picturing Scylla meeting up with Porter for a drink, sitting down with Porter, touching him, kissing him – felt like someone was physically carving her heart out of her chest with a shard of glass.

Scylla moaned into the kiss, sensing very clearly where Raelle wanted them to go with it. 

She pulled away, sucking in a breath, eyes closed, “Raelle,” she practically whimpered, and Raelle use that to her advantage, kissing down her jawline and her neck. She couldn’t help the smug smile as Scylla writhed beneath her ministrations.

“Stop that, I have to go,” she husked, and Raelle hummed. 

“I miss you,” she said as she gently bit down on Scylla’s pulse point. She sucked on it just enough to know that there would be a mark before she worked her way up to Scylla’s ear, simultaneously sliding her hand under Scylla’s pajama top, making Scylla’s breath hitch. “I miss you inside of me. I miss being inside of you. Feeling you. Hearing you. Stay in bed with me,” she nibbled Scylla’s earlobe. 

“You’re evil,” Scylla gasped, which made Raelle chuckle, the sound low in her throat. 

“I’m also right,” she said, a little more insistent, pulling Scylla in for another searing kiss that Scylla reciprocated, tangling her fingers in Raelle’s hair as Raelle slowly started to tease her top off. 

Scylla pulled away abruptly. “No, Raelle, I really don’t have time. Please don’t make this harder than it already is,” she gasped, Raelle latching onto her pulse point again. 

Still, Scylla gently but insistently pushed against Raelle’s shoulders, so she stopped. Raelle sighed into her neck. “I miss you,” she said, hating how much of a whine it came out as. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” she propped herself on her elbows, looking down at Scylla, who reached up and gently stroked her cheek.

“I know, beautiful. I miss you too,” she said, looking almost…pained, before the look disappeared. “It’s this damn special project they have me on. It’s taking up all of my time, but I promise: it’ll be over soon. And when it is…I’m all yours,” her smile turned criminally seductive, which did nothing for how wet Raelle already was. 

She groaned, letting her head fall forward onto Scylla’s chest. “I swear to god, Scylla. You owe me,” she grumbled.

“I owe you so much,” Scylla’s very serious tone had Raelle lifting her head, raising an eyebrow.  “You have no idea, Raelle,” Scylla whispered, taking Raelle’s chin between her fingers and pulling her in for a gentle kiss. “I love you,”

God, it was so sincere that it almost hurt. Raelle’s entire chest suddenly ached. 

“So stay. Call in sick. Be late. The morgue can wait,” she hated how petulant she sounded. Like she was begging her own girlfriend to choose her.

Scylla smiled sympathetically, “Death waits for no woman,” she said, kissing Raelle one more time, chaste. “Now get off me, I have to get ready,”

Raelle shuffled off of her girlfriend, rolling over and electing not to take in the view of Scylla changing, a riot of emotions suddenly dancing within her. Anger. Annoyance. Fear. Sadness. 

She clenched her jaw. It wasn’t just that she was being left wet and wanting – though that certainly didn’t help – but just…that feeling still nagged at her. Ate at her insides like that maggot Porter had mentioned. 

In that moment, Raelle scowled. She didn’t want to think of Porter when she’d just been working up her girlfriend. She didn’t want to fucking think about Porter at all, and yet she hadn’t been able to stop, and she loathed that all the more.

She stiffened when Scylla kissed her on the temple, not bothering to say goodbye back when Scylla whispered it, annoyed despite herself. 

She knew that that fact wasn’t lost on Scylla, either, who left without another word.

\---

It hadn’t exactly been a fight, but leaving things the way they had that morning…it ate at Raelle as she herself got up an hour later, dressed, ate breakfast, brushed her teeth, and headed into work. It ate at her as she had a nice chat with her ambulance partner that day, Byron. He was a sweetheart, and they’d bonded fairly quickly over both being gay. She sat next to him as they waited to be dispatched, and recounted everything that had been happening, venting her frustrations.

“When was the last time you two boned?” Byron asked nonchalantly, entirely unabashed about asking Raelle that question. 

Which was something Raelle appreciated about Byron. He was straight-forward, to the point, and didn’t sugarcoat things. He called it as he saw it and Raelle always had been a fan of such bald-faced honesty. It was always refreshing to have a shift with him, or on occasion, to grab a drink with him, though his taste in bars was far too flashy for Raelle to handle on a regular basis, and her choices were “Far too butch baby’s first bar”, which she simultaneously resented and found absolutely hilarious.

That was what Byron was like, and they got along like a house on fire. 

Raelle laughed, “Before Porter showed up, definitely,”

“You two fuck like rabbits, no wonder you’re upset. You haven’t pinned her to the wall and had your wicked way with her and Porter’s presence is getting to you. That’s all,”

Raelle sighed, absorbing his words. And, well…he wasn’t wrong. Their sex life was…lively, even if sometimes necessarily quick because of their schedules. Quickies in bathrooms weren’t unheard of. Even three years into their relationship, almost a week without sex was…unusual. It happened, but not often, and while she would be lying if she said she wouldn’t get…frustrated…it had never been like this. Had never been so…trying. Had never been such a battle of doubts. 

“Porter’s definitely not helping at all,” she conceded.

Byron hummed, “Neither is the whole ‘you haven’t had your wicked way with her’ part,” he reminded her.

Raelle rolled her eyes and playfully shoved him, “Shut up, the sex-crazed monster is Tally, remember? I am perfectly capable of keeping it in my pants. I just…I hate that he’s still here. I hate that I’m doubting Scylla.”

“Has she given you a reason to doubt her?” Byron asked, leaning against the steering wheel and looking at Raelle expectantly.

She sighed again. “I mean…no? But…I can’t put my finger on it, but it just feels…this feels different,”

“Mmm,” he said, nodding, “Let me ask you this, then, Raelle: if she hasn’t given you reason to doubt, why are you?”

Raelle shook her head, frustrated. “Because she’s…she’s different with him around, Byron,” she said it quietly, as though saying it too loud made it…true. It was true, so that was absurd but…what if Porter was right, and there was a side of Scylla she really didn’t know? 

She knew that there was, but…what if that side…was cruel? Was mean? A side of Scylla that was perhaps completely willing to cheat on her, and right under her nose, at that? 

Raelle didn’t know what to think about it. She knew that there was a part of Scylla that she didn’t know: not really. But she had never considered what that side would be, besides…well, Scylla.

And she loved Scylla.

“Different how?”

Raelle frowned, thinking of the best way to describe Scylla in Porter’s presence. Even though their time together in the apartment had been brief, there had been an insane amount of emotions in the thick tension. Finally, Raelle settled on a word: “Colder. Much colder than I’ve ever seen her,”

“So you think Scylla, who was colder with her ex than you’ve ever seen her, suddenly decided that actually, she  _ does _ want to try it on with her ex again, which means she’s directly cheating on you, the woman she loves…for what? To be mean to her ex?” He quirked an eyebrow, which seemed to call out her paranoia. 

He had a point, too. Based alone on what she saw, Scylla didn’t think highly of Porter. In fact, she seemed to think of him as lower than dirt. She honestly…she kind of seemed to hate him. So it didn’t make sense that Scylla would go running back to him… 

“Also, Raelle,” Byron continued, “Not to like…tell you about your own girlfriend, but she’s kind of ridiculously smart? I think if, for whatever reason, she was seeing her ex, she would be a bit more subtle about it, no? Like…you could find out pretty easily if she was lying about that project. It’s not like Anacostia wouldn’t tell you if there was an investigation that was under wraps. I mean,” he shook his head, “She wouldn’t tell you what was being investigated, but she would definitely let you know if they were working with the hospital, if she knew. And it’s not like you couldn’t just ask someone else. I know you and Izadora are friendly, even if she creeps you out. Like…Scylla’s weird but she’s not stupid,”

Raelle expelled a breath, relief flooding her despite herself. She…she knew that, about Scylla. She knew all of that, but hearing it from someone else…it was validating. Reassuring.

Because, right. Obviously. Scylla was smart, and she trusted Raelle, and Raelle trusted her, which was why Raelle hadn’t done any of those things that Byron had said, despite knowing she could. It would be taking advantage, and would be a serious red flag for their relationship if she breached that trust they had between them, and she wasn’t going to do that, Porter be damned. She trusted Scylla. She loved Scylla. And Byron was right, Scylla was way too smart to do something that stupid. 

…right?

“You know I’m right,” Byron must have seen the doubt on her features, and Raelle couldn’t help but laugh, though hollowly.

“I know you’re right,” she conceded.

His expression softened, “But you still don’t believe me,”

“I want to,” Raelle said seriously, “And I want to believe her. I don’t know. I guess I’m just jealous,”

“You’re jealous, you’re sad, you miss her and you miss the mind-blowing sex-” he shot her a look to cut her off as she opened her mouth, “-and no one can blame you for that. It’s normal, I think. But you still love her, and you still trust her, and that’s important,”

Raelle expelled a breath. “Yeah,” she acknowledged. She let her head fall back against her seat. “I’m letting it get to me, though. We…had a not-great moment this morning. I like…I wasn’t a dick but she definitely knows I’m upset with her,”

“Well. You are, so that’s good that she knows,”

Raelle let out a frustrated noise, “No Byron, it’s not. I don’t want her thinking I’m mad at her. I’m mad at the situation and I miss her, but like you said, I know that despite all my irrational fears, she wouldn’t do something like that to me. But she left this morning probably thinking I’m mad at her,”

Byron shrugged. “Eh, let her stew. Seems like you’ve been in a not-great spot since her project started, so it wouldn’t hurt to let her have a small taste of your frustration. Just make sure you talk it out before it hits a boiling point. Though,” he smirked, “the boiling-point sex would probably be worth it,”

Raelle rolled her eyes. “I’m not so sure, in this instance. It may just lead to less sex, if we both get upset,”

Byron frowned, “That is the last thing I want. You’re no fun when you’re not getting any,”

Raelle snorted. “Gee, thanks bud,”

“I keep it real, Raelle,” he winked. 

Raelle laughed despite herself. “I know, that’s why I keep you around,”

He raised an eyebrow, “Gee, thanks bud,” he parroted.

“Shut up and tell me about your newest conquest,” she changed the subject with a shake of her head.

Byron sent her an eyebrow raise, fully aware that she was deflecting, but indulged her a moment later, when he realized she was done talking about it. 

With that, he dove into his latest Grindr date, which had Raelle in stitches, temporarily able to forget the unease that still churned in the pit of her stomach.

\---

Despite herself, her talk with Byron actually did have her feeling better. Had her feeling better, but also…feeling bad. Scylla hadn’t necessarily deserved the cold shoulder that morning: after all, she was just going to work. Doing her job. Raelle had just been upset from all the thoughts in her head that wouldn’t shut up and were making her unreasonably paranoid. In the light of day, she saw that, and she felt bad for having likely started Scylla’s day off on the wrong foot.

It’d been a while since she’d last done it, but she decided to bring Scylla lunch. Sometimes, when Raelle used to do it, Izadora would let Scylla go on her own break early, so that they could eat together, and…honestly, Raelle treasured those lunches. They were little ways to show that she loved Scylla and missed her, and Scylla’s radiant smile at seeing Raelle, with takeaway bags in her hands, always warmed Raelle to her very core. 

And she wanted to see that smile on her girlfriend. She wanted to see her surprise at Raelle sheepishly showing up with her favorite Thai, and gently apologizing for that morning. It may not be the most romantic of their lunches: she wasn’t sure if Scylla was feeling as shitty about the morning as Raelle, but with any luck…lunch would help them bridge the gap that Raelle’s cold shoulder may have created. They could talk about it: Raelle could explain, and Scylla could explain if she needed to, and they could go back to feeling as normal as possible with Scylla being away so much.

Raelle’s lunch hour ended up being later than she originally anticipated, because of a last-second call, but she arrived at the hospital a few hours before Scylla’s shift usually ended. Not that she knew what Scylla’s schedule looked like with the project, but at any rate, she was confident she was still arriving at as good a time as any for a lunch break. Or even just a fifteen minute break. 

She’d take what she could get. 

Raelle walked into the hospital with purpose, following the signs for the proper departments, though she didn’t need to: she was all too familiar with the path to the morgue, though she wasn’t allowed in the morgue itself. She stopped at the reception, quickly giving the woman there the relevant information and asking her to call down to the morgue, which the receptionist did, speaking for a moment before hanging up.

“She’ll be right up,” she said, without looking at Raelle, returning to whatever it was she was doing on her computer. 

Raelle thanked her, backing away from the desk and standing, waiting, her heart beating in her chest, excited despite herself at surprising her girlfriend.

The door opened a few minutes later: the door that lead down the stairs to the morgue, stairs which Raelle had seen a handful of times, usually when Scylla left, the huge smile on her face not quite enough to distract Raelle from the intrigue of those stairs. And seeing them had made her shiver every time, feeling like she was very much peeking into the underworld.

Izadora L’Amara walked out, hands in her white coat pockets. She looked around briefly before she spotted Raelle, and came forward. 

“Raelle,” she greeted amicably. 

Raelle sent her a hesitant half-smile, confused. “Hey Izadora-”

“This is a surprise! Haven’t seen you in a while,” Izadora said, smiling in her odd little way that always managed to creep Raelle out.

Raelle wasn’t sure what it was about all of Scylla’s coworkers, but they were just…scary. They saw death daily: they dealt with death daily. Their will was stronger than any human alive, as far as Raelle was concerned. She had seen death herself, but she would have never been strong enough to just…sit with death every day. Converse around it. Work with it. See whole humans reduced to nothing but bodies. It was…horrifying. It made her skin crawl, and something about Izadora just screamed…death doctor.

Had she met Izadora as a child, Raelle was fairly certain she would have thought the woman was an honest-to-god grim reaper. It was just the vibe she gave off, even smiling.

“Anyway, I figured I would just come up and say hello. Haley said that you were looking for Scylla?” Izadora tilted her head.

“Yes, just wanted to surprise her with lunch,” Raelle held up the paper bag in her hands for emphasis. 

“That’s very sweet. She’s been distracted since her aunt died-”

Raelle furrowed her brow. Her aunt? Scylla didn’t have an aunt…

“I think lunch with you may help her focus a bit more. Alas, perhaps we shall find out another day: Scylla isn’t here,” Izadora said with a half shrug, “Her shift ended about an hour ago. She’s been coming in for earlier shifts, did she not tell you?”

Raelle stared, feeling her palms start to sweat and the blood start to drain from her face. 

Her stomach twisted. Yes, she knew that Scylla had come in early. Obviously. She’d practically begged her to stay in bed and then pettily gave her the cold shoulder when she wouldn’t, which had snowballed to where she was now. Shocked, standing in front of a semi-concerned looking Izadora.

Raelle shook her head, forcing down the bile she could feel threatening to rise. 

“Oh, I, um…yes, I know she’s been doing early shifts,” Raelle said, with a little more force than intended. As though she needed to defend that  _ yes, she knew her girlfriend, thank you very much! _

Izadora quirked an eyebrow, and Raelle sucked in a breath, quickly trying to think of what to say next.

“I just…I guess I forgot it meant she’d be out already. She’s been pulling doubles recently-”

“Mmm, not here, she hasn’t,” Izadora said, narrowing her eyes into a bit of a squint at Raelle, as though Raelle was talking nonsense, which was absolutely absurd as, of the two of them, Izadora was definitely the one saying things that made no goddamned sense. 

Scylla had been pulling doubles. Or maybe not doubles, but long hours nonetheless...  


Her overtime pay was going to be absolutely insane, and the unbidden thought almost made Raelle laugh, because this was all just too fucking surreal.

She hadn’t…she hadn’t even come in with the intention of checking on Scylla. She’d just wanted to be a good girlfriend, she’d just wanted to surprise Scylla, and yet it was her who was surprised, looking at a confused Izadora as the realization suddenly hit her, full-force. 

She…Scylla had been lying.

Scylla had been  _ fucking _ lying.

Her gut had been right all along. 

Raelle felt a tremble run through her, which she forced to stop, clenching her jaw and closing her eyes, squeezing them shut so tightly that spots danced behind her eyelids. She forced herself to breathe through her nose.

“I just figured, with the fieldwork project-” Ralle tried.

“Unless she’s gotten herself another fellowship, we haven’t had any recent fieldwork. No major projects, either. Not since the last time you came in, actually,”

Raelle remembered that time. It had been a high-profile case, so Scylla hadn’t been able to talk about it, but the news had already picked up on the story: a body found in a river just outside of the city that had people making tenuous connections to another body that had been found a year before, in a different part of the city and under completely different circumstances. 

Bodies were…unusual, especially ones found with rope burns on their wrists, so the local people with too much time on their hands dedicated whole podcasts or late-night radio programs speculating any connections between the two. The more extreme podcasters, sounding a bit like conspiracy theorists complete with tin-foil hats, bent themselves over backwards to try to connect those bodies with still older ones, ranging back a few years. It wasn’t often they had something like a mysterious murder pop up, so Raelle could understand the fervor, even if it made her roll her eyes to herself with the hushed whispers everywhere about a possible serial killer in their midst. 

Mostly, it seemed absurd, though on more than one occasion, she’d seen Scylla listening with rapt attention to a podcast or two about it. 

“It’s just interesting, isn’t it?” she’d asked quietly. Contemplatively. 

“It’s unlikely, is what it is,” Raelle had said with a roll of her eyes before leaning forward and stealing a kiss. 

Better times. Raelle’s stomach was churning, and she honest-to-god felt like she might throw up. She also probably looked sick, judging from Izadora’s concerned expression, which seemed oddly out of place on her. 

“She did mention a project, but I just assumed that was a personal matter, perhaps to do with her aunt, and I left it at that. Not usually one to dig into my fellows’ lives,” Izadora shrugged, “She asked to come in early for shifts this week, at any rate. And as she’s already left for the day, I imagine she’s doing whatever that project is. I’m sure she’d be thrilled for you to surprise her there, though. We all need support after losing a loved one, even if Scylla is good at hiding that need,” Izadora smiled encouragingly, as though she thought she was being helpful. As though Raelle knew what this special project was, or that Scylla’s aunt had apparently fucking died. As though Scylla apparently even _had_ a fucking aunt. As though Scylla told her _anything at all_.

Which she _fucking hadn’t_. 

Raelle felt her stomach drop still further, and she could feel her forearm starting to ache from where she was gripping the takeout bag too tightly. 

“Yeah, right, sorry, I must have just…um, assumed, because death and…projects. My bad,” Raelle’s words sounded hollow and confused, even to her own ears. Distant. She felt like her ribcage was tightening, her heart racing, palms sweating. “She’ll um. She’ll like that,” Raelle managed to get out, her voice stiff, vision starting to tunnel as a roaring started in her ears.

Scylla had been lying. Scylla was lying. Scylla was lying, Scylla was lying,  _ Scyllawaslying! _

She snapped herself out of her spiral long enough to manage a semi-polite, if stilted, “I better um, go find her, then. Her Thai will get cold-”

Izadora gave her another encouraging smile. “Well, it was nice to see you again, at any rate, Raelle. Don’t be afraid to stop by and say hello,” she nodded and then took her leave, leaving Raelle to stare, emotions crashing down on her like a tsunami. 

Rage. She saw absolute red, and without thinking, Raelle immediately turned on her heel, marching out of the building and shoving the uneaten Thai food in the trash.

She wasn’t fucking hungry anymore, anyway. 

\---

Raelle didn’t remember the rest of her day. She knew she’d gone back to work. She couldn’t say what the hell she did at work, except clench her jaw so tightly that she gave herself a headache, her ears ringing, her blood pressure no doubt through the roof.

Scylla had…Scylla had fucking lied to her. Scylla had looked her in the fucking eyes and had fucking lied to her. Scylla had fucking-

Tears welled in Raelle’s eyes on the bus home and she forced them down. Forced everything down: the entire storm raging within her. She forced it all down until she arrived home, and she’d stared at their building and bile had risen in her throat, so she’d turned and abruptly walked away. She should go inside to break down, for the privacy alone, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t, because she knew she would absolutely break something. Multiple things. She would tear everything apart. She couldn’t bring herself to go into their  _ empty  _ apartment, knowing that Scylla was still out and about, and Raelle immediately shoved aside the rest of her dangerous thoughts, because they were too much to process and because she  _ didn’t want to fucking process them _ .

She blindly walked through her tears. She wanted to scream, and cry, and breakdown, and hated that if for just a moment, she let go of the anger…all that remained was pain. Enough to take her to her knees. She looked up, sucking in breath after breath even as her chest tightened around her heart and her lungs. She could hear the sound of air passing through her clenched teeth. She put her hands behind her head and forced herself to pace until she couldn’t take it anymore and she turned, punching a rickety wooden fence that lined the sidewalk she’d been pacing on. The whole thing shuddered, and her knuckles throbbed, but she could hardly feel it, the throbbing matching her erratic heartbeat. 

“Fuck,” she hissed, then yelled, “Fuck!” 

Scylla had goddamned fucking lied to her. To her fucking face. She had lied to her fucking boss, she had lied to Raelle. She was lying through her goddamn teeth. She had told Raelle she had fieldwork and she had told Izadora that her non-existent fucking aunt had died, and didn’t that mean she had time off?? Didn’t that mean…

Fuck. Raelle felt her stomach drop, twisting painfully. That meant leave time, time off, whole fucking days where Scylla hadn’t had to go to fucking work. Whole fucking days, hours upon hours unaccounted for. Whole fucking days that Raelle didn’t fucking know that Scylla had fucking had off. 

When had she taken those days off? And what the _fuck_ had she done with them?! Because Raelle certainly was non-the-fucking-wiser. Raelle had never heard about this aunt and she knew Scylla didn’t have any fucking relatives, and that did nothing to help her at all as Raelle realized that she hadn’t known Scylla’d had that time off, she had no idea what the fuck Scylla had done with that time off, and Raelle had no idea where the fuck Scylla was, back then or in that current moment, and she didn’t know what she was doing, but Raelle couldn’t hold the demons back any longer: the ones that whispered that she actually knew _exactly_ what Scylla was doing.

Or, well. Who.

The thought churned her stomach so hard that she nearly retched.

Who in-fucking-deed. Who had Scylla been watching, when Raelle had run into her that day at the park? Who had Scylla on edge, all the time, refusing to talk to Raelle at all about him and his goddamn fucking presence?? Who in the fuck had Scylla been spending all of her sudden, lie-provided free-fucking-time with?! 

She yanked her phone out of her pocket, opening her last message to Scylla.

_ <3 _

Raelle saw red again, anger hot in her veins, blurring her vision until –

Raelle felt the sob a moment later, taking over her as she doubled over, squatting as the pain hit her, full-force. 

Scylla…Scylla had lied to her. About everything. 

She could feel her heart splintering in her ribcage.

And suddenly, she couldn’t stop crying, curled up in a ball, back against the fence she’d punched, hugging her knees, unable and unwilling to control the sobs as they racked her body and she let her demons get the better of her, consuming her thoughts and making her cry even harder.

\---

She eventually couldn’t cry anymore, and she blushed a deep red at realizing she very much was out in public, having a breakdown. At the very least…their neighborhood was quiet. The fence gave her some privacy, and she was between that and a parked car. She couldn’t help but be somewhat grateful that no one had seemed to have come by while she lost all semblance of sanity for a few minutes. She wiped her eyes and finally picked herself up and walked herself to their apartment building, feeling spent. She dragged her feet as she stepped into her apartment, freezing when she saw the small collection of shoes: hers and Scylla’s.

The anger returned, just as hot as before but now…righteous. 

Right. She’d let Scylla get too fucking comfortable. 

No more fucking lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Show of hands, who’s a little dead?? Poor Raelle was not expecting that, she just wanted to be a good girlfriend, goddamn it! I’m not crying, you are!! 
> 
> I hate to leave you guys on that angst-ridden note but prepare yourselves for next chapter, it’s...well, you’ll see…
> 
> Anywho! If you enjoyed you guys know the drill! Toss a kudos or a like to your fic author if your heart is in your throat 'cause that means I did a good job and I like knowing when you guys are enjoying the roller coaster with me. Alas, I shall leave you all to stew with that incredible angst brewing, take care of yourselves, and I’ll see you all next week!


End file.
